Rampant disregard for the law and privacy protection has been rampant in the NSA. A May 2012 report was leaked to the Washington Post. Yes we have no idea what government is doing without leakers including Bradley Manning. Demonstrating how easy and routine such violations occur. And demonstrating how accurate Snowden has been in protecting the fundamentals of American democracy. The front page Washington Post report of 15 Aug 2013 is entitled "NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds".

So Bradley is going to be Chelsea? We have to pay for his hormones??

Don't see why not.

Bradley was already seeking counselling for problems related to gender identity before all this stuff happened. Seems, from reports I've read, that he was (and she is) suffering, psychologically, by remaining a gender that she does not feel.

I don't see why hormones in that instance are any more outrageous than psych meds for someone with a purely psychiatric condition whilst in prison.

She is going to be in there for a long time. The State and military will have its pound of flesh for what she did. There is no reason to add further suffering on top of the incarceration and privations of prison life.

It will be interesting to see what happens. The Army has never done that before, and I don't see them doing any favors for her. But gays are now allowed in the military, and there has to be a first time for everything. Maybe somebody else will be the first, and then after that ice is broken, Manning will get hormones in a few years. She's got nothing but time.

Chelsea Womanning

Hehehehe.

Clever bastard.

Oh well. If you can't afford gender reassignment in the civilian world, you can always join the military and become a traitor.

In the meanwhile, the rest of the veterans whom served honorably have to suffer long delays in getting their treatment and meds. Next time I run out of medicine, I can comfort myself knowing the BOP will ensure the traitor gets his hormones on time.

Why should we consider gender change and hormone treatment any
different than cancer and the appropriate meds for any other person.

Sarge, remember the timeline...
Manning was serving under DADT.
Although Obama talked about it in 2008 and 2009, he did not actually
sign off on the first stage of the repeal of DADT until 12/22/10
... months after Manning had already been arrested.

It is non sequitur to connect gender change and the actions that lead to Manning's arrest.
And certainly, Manning's treatment in BOP is not going to have one
iota of effect on the treatment of any other military personnel.

In fact, it might be argued that Manning's gender change and hormone replacement
may well benefit others already in military who need similar services.

I have no problems with the transgendered and I try to be as understanding and supportive as I can. My problem with Manning is he betrayed his country. The government doesn't have the money to take of the veteran's who served honorably. If Manning doesn't receive his meds, it is considered discrimination plus cruel and unusual punishment. Meanwhile, the other veterans are told to stand at the end of the line. No one will be on TV denouncing cruel and unusual punishment for them.

My issue with Manning is he betrayed his country and shouldn't be rewarded

Couple of points: Manning is being punished through incarceration in a tough prison environment for many years. Giving somebody the treatment and healthcare they need, whilst they are in your charge is not a reward.

Your government does have the money to take care of veterans who have served their country honorably. The reason there are lines and lines of veterans having to wait months and years for their treatment to be covered is because of administrative and systemic problems, not a lack of cash. Be angry that the cash they have is being wasted on an inefficient and badly administrated system.

It is not one or the other. Bradley Manning's treatment in prison has no bearing on whether or when a veteran in distress is covered for VA treatment.

Lastly, lots of people have been on TV denouncing the unacceptable delays in veteran care. I live in the UK and even I know about the warehouse sized rooms full of unprocessed paper applications, and the ongoing saga of trying to get two different computerised systems to interact.

Again, it is not one or the other. People can support the moral obligation for the state and army to take care of those serving prison sentences and also support the moral obligation for state and army to take care of the veterans who serve and served in the military.

Naw, they're just doing that 'cause they think Snowden will come back if there's a WikiWife waiting for him in prison. It's a gov'ment strategy.

My issue with the country is that it betrayed Manning, and will just continue to hurt the country by operating poorly.

I've known very many M-to-F TSs: best friends with one, good friends with two others, and had many many acquaintances. The virtual community has always been a place for them to feel comfortable, and for some, to live as women on a trial basis. Choose an appropriately sexed handle and you're good to go.

As a group, I find them to be highly interesting people before and after the transition. During, however, they are not exactly the most even-keeled folk. They will be highly emotional and sometimes irrational. And while one should have compassion for people facing a... ridiculously complicated and personal matter, challenging their deepest personal psychological condition...

They should not have security clearances that allow them access to all of the country's most important secret communications.

Much as the Army shouldn't send a soldier with a broken arm to carry a rifle into harm's way, the Army never should have put Bradley Manning in that position. They knew he was a troubled person. They apparently didn't care.

Manning testified that he spent hour after hour in the Wikileaks IRC channel, debating various Wikileaks issues. Really? Did the Army know that, and what it entailed? They should have said "I'm sorry Private (!) Manning, you will have some sort of desk duty but your Intel access is closed."

The US Army did this. Or rather, did nothing. It's like leaving Bill Buckner in to play first base even though he's injured. You don't blame Buckner when he can't field a simple ground ball. You blame the manager for not bringing in a defensive replacement. (Fuck you, John McNamara)

:bs: ... unless you have some source other than your own limited experience,
I have seen nothing in the lay press to connect "they/them",
or specifically Manning to any decision to pass information to Wikileaks.

Likewise, to try to connect the military to "They apparently didn't care" is just plain silly.

I'm sure I don't understand your objection.

Exactly. "They" can be any category of service member experiencing that level of stress: those going through a messy divorce, devastating illness of an immediate family member, crisis of conscience, crisis of faith, PTSD, ... etc. Gender transitioning service members should be no exception. No one has a right to a security clearance. It's a privilege (like a driver's license) granted at the discretion of the classifying authority, upgraded or downgraded as appropriate, and access can be immediately suspended by local commanders any time they feel the need arises. One of the ways in which the need arises is when a service member gets so wound up in their unfolding personal dilemma(s) that they develop an indifference to their job.

Au contraire Souscrapaud, the Army was forced to accept that aspect of Manning without reservation by the governing body politic. The Army knows that the young adults it seeks come with a variety of issues including various identity crises. Opening the door to a wider variety of them, without additional screening, opened a can of worms for local commanders. It seems that Manning's local commander decided to share the wealth.

The Army shared its bequeathed can of worms with its Commander in Chief. I hope he enjoyed them.

My objection is to attempts made directly, by inference, or dim-witted humor,
to submit a causal relationship between gender-ID and Manning's actions.

As far as I know now, only three potential reasons for Manning's actions
were discussed in Steve Fishman's 2011 NY Magazine (11 pages)... here.

No one has (yet) said or implied that $ had anything to do with his motivations.
By the FIshman chronologically, the GLBT-bullying by his army room mates
was a serious issue that started in the U.S. early in Manning's enlistment
... long before DADT was repealed. [pg 1]

It was later (2009) in Iraq, as I read it, and completely independent of his gender-ID issues,
Manning became aware of secret and illegal actions in the war, leading to him take such videos
to his superior officer, but then being rebuked. [pg 4]

It was even later that Manning got in touch with Wikileaks, and described his motivations as honorable:
Lastly, Manning was arrested just 4 days after a colleague informed the FBI.
So unless the argument is that his military superiors already recognized that
Manning was sending documents to Wikileaks, it does not fly to say
"they apparently didn't care".

Well as you know, the Lamplighter filter was built during a time when we had to fight to make sure everyone was treated equally, and discrimination was the very worst problem in the world USA.

Apply that filter to everything, and now Ms. Manning is a tortured soul because of stuff everybody else did to her. Not because of her internal psychology, which was based on a solid foundation of not being certain what gender she was. I'm being sarcastic, but think of how your own world would be rocked if you woke up one day and decided you were a woman. No really, think about it, because empathy is more important than sympathy.

Just because we've put T into the ever-expanding LGBTSTGNC inclusivity alphabet soup, in order to help build a world of inclusion and understanding, doesn't mean Ts are immediately afforded the kind of stability needed to have access to all the diplomatic secrets of the US.

That kind of stability hears the mocking and becomes this (from your link):

These are the words of a person with a TOP SECRET SECURITY CLEARANCE and you know what? I don't care why her troubles came about. The Army can become a mirror for the society's need for social fairness and inclusion. The top secret security clearance, however, cannot.

The Army knew she was troubled. If they had to overlook that because she was a T, as the Lamplighter filter suggests, then we have bigger problems and a lot more troubled people are going to get 35 year sentences.

Horseshit. If you see something wrong, you leak the evidence of that wrong to the press, so the American public will become aware of that wrong and pressure the politicians to fix it. You don't take hundreds of thousands of documents you haven't even read and give them to a foreign national.

so, you'd say, right response, wrong execution?

The need for whistle blowers has proven to be valid, and they should be protected.
But this clown is no whistle blower, he's just an attention whore traitor. He exposed material that he had no idea if it was putting the lives of our soldiers, or anyone else, at risk or not. That's because he didn't give two shits about anyone but himself. :mad:

Manning did what she thought she had to do. She obviously isn't as bright or organized as Snowden but I don't want my whistleblowers to have to take IQ tests. She did what she thought she needed to, which in the context of Snowden's work appears sloppy and dangerous but there isn't a handbook for this.

They did. That was the political agenda. Why do you suppose we don't hear more about Manning's supervisors, commanders; or, proponency oversight?

Not likely. While being a transitioning T is a predisposing factor and may pose a risk that warrants access restriction for some, not all of them will become attention whoring traitors. That was a character flaw intrinsic to Manning. Xob struck the nail a true blow:

Manning is a disgrace to any associated cause.
If you choose to believe what a vindictive attention whoring traitor says to rationalize being a vindictive attention whoring traitor.

Neither do I. It makes it much easier to catch the ones who are just attention whoring traitors and put them behind bars.

Let's just remember that under cross-examination the prosecution witnesses revealed that no deaths or casualties have been connected to any WikiLeaks information. Manning was only a traitor to the criminals he exposed. He could have done a much better job but people don't always respond well to stress of realizing their organization has been corrupted. Obviously, I know Bush and Cheney were the biggest traitors so far this century so that's going to color my thinking.

Affected were not just Bush-n-Cheney, or any other particular scapegoat you'd care to name, but pretty much every government in every major nation, going back as far as 1966. Some of them must have been innocent, or at least, you know, fairly elected under rule of law.

Tunisia (and thus, roughly, the Arab Spring) was blamed on it, so I guess only "bad guys" died, or something. Or maybe the witnesses were saying that nobody was tried in a court of law, for things said in diplomatic cables, and then killed for it. Or something.

I concur.
I concur.

Does nobody know how to read English? Undertoad posted an excerpt demonstrating that the organization knew the individual was mentally unstable--for whatever reason. And he stated that he doesn't care, and that it doesn't matter, what the reason is. The only differentiating factor regarding this person's gender identity is that IF the organization was afraid to place normal restrictions on an individual who was exhibiting unstable behavior--regardless of the alleged reason--then that IS ƒucked up. The entire point is that the reason doesn't matter. The thing where someone ƒucked up is when they did an overcompensating cartwheel right over the edge of a cliff that common sense should have warned them about.

I don't think anyone is disputing that. The conversation covers both reasons for Manning's behavior and reasons for the Army's behavior. Regarding the latter, Undertoad opined that the Army let a troubled Manning remain in position because it apparently didn't care. Lamplighter said Undertoad's opinion was silly unless Manning's superiors already knew information was being leaked; but, didn't otherwise address the Army's handling of Manning's untoward behavior. I opined that politics forced the Army to accept Manning as is; so, they allowed Manning to remain in position until a serious infraction occurred.

The reason for Manning's troubles shouldn't matter. Security clearances are; however, political in nature and that's what makes the reason relevant to discussing the Army's actions.

This is unacceptable.
I DEMAND that we disagree about something.

Pistols at dawn on the main promenade.

FIGHT!

Oh Lordy, it's on!

Water pistols, loaded with tequila, taking each other's best shots. Glorious way to start the day!

Our seconds, Infi and Clod, will administer lime juice and salt until only one is left standing.

Do I also get tequila? I'm in. :biggrinba

In like Flint. :cool:

Incidentally (inside Austin reference here) I just found out that Cafe Java is BYOB (!)

So I walked next door to the liquor store and got a couple of little tiny bottles of Crown (!)

In other words,



IT'S ON.

LIKE DONKEY KONG, motherƒuckers.

Isn't it that way all over Texas ?

When we lived in Dallas, you could not go into a club or bar(?) and buy a mixed drink.

It was BYOB in a paper sack from the liquor store.
You gave your bottle to the bar tender and your drink was mixed.
You charged the same amount as if the club had provided the booze :(
Then you got you bottle back where you were ready to leave.

It was a crazy system, and maybe (hopefully) things have changed since the '60's

Not only do I not know what you're talking about, but I only got up from laying in bed watching Bill Hicks to have another Crown and anxiolytic, and smoke a cigar on the balcony.

I will say, however, that all the best songs have James Ingram in them. Fact.




But seriously, no. There are some places, like restaurants (and who decided how the ƒuck that is spelled?) which are BYOB because they don't have the license to sell liquor. But they don't take your hooch and mix it for you (?) and they only charge you for "set-ups" if you ask, i.e. a glass with ice and coke, etc.

And God I can't imagine what Dallas would have been like in the 60s. They probably had the legal right to bash your knee-caps with a billy club if your moustache wasn't trimmed properly, or your shirt wasn't tucked in. :::shudder:::

So you can drive with an open container in the car.:rolleyes:

Remember this posting at the beginning of the Snowden affair with Wikileaks...
A judge has unsealed documents in the case related to this event,
and this 2-page article has a fascinating account of how Ladar Levison
maintained his integrity while fighting the feds, by ending up having
to close his business... the email service, Lavabit.

Well worth the read...


NY Times
By NICOLE PERLROTH and SCOTT SHANE
October 2, 2013

As F.B.I. Pursued Snowden, an E-Mail Service Stood Firm

And so the war continues. The Senate Intelligence committee has been investigating CIA activities concerning kidnapping, extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, and torture. All that Obama halted when he took office. Apparently the committee, using computer sleigh of hand or a leaker, has obtain CIA documents that show damnnig facts well beyond what the CIA wanted to admit.

So the CIA used the secret intelligence gathering system to collect all Senate investigators communications. Obviously without any court order. A war has broken out between the CIA and the Senators resonsible for knowing everything the CIA is doing. The Justice Department is now investigating both the CIA and Senate Intelligence Committee. Because all are accused of violating laws - that we did not know about until Snowden exposed all these "Patriotic" Actions.

From CBS News of 12 March 2014: Why Sen. Dianne Feinstein declared war on the CIA

Extremists in government (including Cheney) said if you were not an American citizen, then kidnapping anywhere in the world was legal, put you in a secret prision, deny you existed, torture you, and do so for as long as they wanted. Extremists Republican lawyers even wrote findings that said it was acceptable. The Senate finally started investigating in 2006 what became normal operation in the CIA many years earlier. And so a war has started. Some 'sneakies' fear you might learn of their Gestapo attitudes.

But then back in 2003, some even in the Cellar approved of their activities. Since non-Americans are second class people.
How does one get on the CIA's enemies list. Echelon. Echelon. Echelon. And I do not even have Ruby Slippers.

So I just took a stroll down memory lane. Bad times.

I'm not sure if it was worse then or if it's just that we aren't examining things as closely now. We don't have people like White House counsel Alberto Gonzales saying torture is OK and that the Geneva Conventions are "quaint." So that's good, but we do have drones assassinating enemies at the push of a button. And no privacy from our spying government.

I pleased that Feinstein is doing this. A little transparency is a good thing for a nation.

Wow, there is just so much to read here. Am I the only ass hole who thinks that this guy and Snowden took an oath to NOT reveal information under their care? Does every one not realize that there were other avenues of approach for these two rather than sell or give this information to the world at large? Am I the only guy who thinks that they did, in fact, harm the United States, the reason this information was classified in the first place?

I think that too. Snowden is a traitor to his government. But he's also a hero for shining a light on this. He's both.

Did you forget lessons of Watergate, Pentagon Papers, et al? Did you ignore the larger criminals who violated their job and our trust by excercising unrestricted violations of Federal and Constitutional laws? Snowden is a little guy. Who are these people so corrupt as to now even attack or mistrust their strongest supporter in the Senate? People with such power who are also paranoid are somehow good?

America has a long history of people violating laws in order to protect American freedoms. Or did you forget Nixon intentionally tried to subvert the government of the US and the principles upon what makes democracy work? Had so many little people not violated rules and laws, then Nixon and his anti-American cronies would have gotten away with it ... and more.

If you think only laws matter, then you forget about so many criminals in American history including Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton who even conspired with the enemy (The French) to create principles we now worship.

Why was so much of what Nixon did classified? Why were the entire Pentagon Papers classified? Learn what is more important than a few laws. We have, potentially, a greatest threat to the principles of the US by people who can and do manipulate and destroy lives ... as J Edgar Hoover did. What he did also was classified. How many avenues of approach existed in that case?

Oath? You mean the Eula, the Terms of Service, nobody takes those seriously. :rolleyes: