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we have new Bradley Manning news that's where I want to start today on this
wednesday Army private first class Bradley Manning
Manning as we've been covering has been I'm in a trial
at Fort Meade Maryland over documents that he leaked to WikiLeaks
and we have gotten past the verdict where he pled guilty to some counts he
was found not guilty
%uh aiding the enemy and then there were a number of charges that he he was found
guilty of something pled guilty to some
%uh the news is as follows number one the maximum possible sentence we don't
actually know the real
the actual sentence yet but the maximum possible sentence has been reduced in
ninety years this is the result of the judge deciding that
some other charges that were separate in the
um indictment are actually kind of the same things so some of them have been
combined in that drops
the maximum possible sentence from 136 years
to ninety years now given his age that given the fact that he is
you know in his mid-twenties he realistically could spend most or all of
his life
in prison %uh depending on you know if you if you get ninety and then get that
cut in half
verses a 136 and having that cut in half
that can start to make a difference depending on what appeals and what else
may happen in the future so that's kind of
to be determined I the sentencing is now in its second week so
so soon presumably we will know what is the actual sentence for Bradley Manning
the other bit of news is that last night Bradley Manning's father Brian Manning
did an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN
and in that interview he actually said
I believe my son is innocent in spite of the fact that he's been convicted
in spite of the fact that he's pled guilty to some things I believe that he
is innocent and the fascinating thing is the reason why it's not
he doesn't think that his son arm would do this so
or any other such thing the reason he says is he just can't understand
how someone could get more than 700,000
documents from a classified computer network
and give them to WikiLeaks without being
detected so is that is kinda making the case have how could he really have done
this
without anybody noticing it just doesn't make sense it must've been either
someone else or maybe a setup I would been for
that he's implying now what is Bradley Manning say about this he says the way
he did this was he downloaded stuff
onto his workplace computer transferred it onto CDs
and then used his personal computer to send stuff
to WikiLeaks his father also says that Bradley was grandstanding
when he said he leaked the information to expose
government wrongdoing very very interesting interview encourage you to
watch it we're not going to play clips because
just to be perfectly honest sometimes when we use those types of interviews on
the show we kind of know what sources are very stingy about copyright law
and even though I think we would be perfectly well within fair use to use
those clips
we don't want to be causing problems so in any case it's quite an extensive
interview look it up Anderson Cooper
Brian Manning check it out on YouTube herb CNN website wherever it is
that you can legally watch it without breaking anyone's copyright because
that's very very important
I i wanna talk about another aspect of this though
what about all of those individuals were talking about the Bradley Manning
sentencing conviction in en tienda trial what about the individuals
seen in like for example the video that Bradley Manning leaked
extra-judicial the killing
individuals no word on any charges there how bout those who
actually committed the embarrassments the war crimes the scandals
that we learned about through Bradley Manning's releases
when are the charges coming there when it was the disciplinary action happening
there
this is like blaming only the drug test
for someone doing drugs and never actually
doing anything about the individual caught doing drugs for
22 to use kinda crude an allergy
I don't ask because it's a mystery why nothing has happened it's really not the
answer is
those who committed the acts have enough power
are and our in positions of power where they can focus the blame
or at least hide in the background while the blame is focused on the messenger in
this particular click case Bradley Manning
not denying the Bradley Manning factually speaking broke laws but
that thats that's still an open question what if anything is going to happen
to all the people involved in the things that that WikiLeaks throughput Bradley
Manning's
documents well we're able to release and inform people about
open question