the treatment of Jeffrey Sterling

Jeffrey Sterling has been in the news recently due to the completion of the trial phase of his prosecution by the Obama Administration under the Espionage Act. That in itself is noteworthy since so few Americans have ever been tried under that particular piece of legislation born out of the war preparations for what was supposed to have been the great war. But like the Selective Service System and the USA PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act and all the rest of the national security state, these things have a tendency of becoming permanent.

A typical headline and lede goes something like this:

C.I.A. Officer Is Found Guilty in Leak Tied to Times Reporter

WASHINGTON — Jeffrey A. Sterling, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, was convicted of espionage Monday on charges that he told a reporter for The New York Times about a secret operation to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

Now, that's from the paper whose reporter himself published the information in question. Sterling wasn't found guilty of espionage. He was found guilty of whistleblowing. And of course, even that is circumstantial. Remember how hard it is to prosecute the financial fraudsters and war criminals because we don't have airtight cases against them? Well, when the government actually wants to, it prosecutes people on rather flimsy evidence. If you're interested in the details of the proceedings, Marcy Wheeler has been following this in depth.

What I want to do is tell a little more about him and government employment. Something I haven't seen in the corporate media at all is anything that would humanize him or tell an actual story about him other than ooh, spy convicted. (In fact, if an American really was spying on America for America's Enemies, why hasn't he been tried and hanged for treason?).

You see, Sterling is a graduate of Washington University in Saint Louis, my alma mater. He grew up in Missouri, Cape Girardeau, not Virginia, where he's being tried. He received a law degree in 1992. He worked for the public defenders office. And he had a respected career in government service until something happened. Was it incompetence? Nope. Did he steal something? Nope. Did he sexually harass a colleague? Nope.

Sterling is a black man. Now that shouldn't matter. But it does still matter in our society. When he filed a discrimination suit against the CIA, all of a sudden, the government started not liking him. That's the real story here. An employee tried to exercise their right to anti-discrimination, and the government responded by pursuing that employee aggressively for alleged leaking of classified information - a pursuit not sought with the same vigor against others who might also have been the source of the leak.

And, oh, what was this leak? Yeah, well, the government doesn't want you to ask. See, they classified materials in the discrimination proceedings and the leak proceedings. Because, you know, public information doesn't belong to the public. It belongs to the Fearless Leaders of our great country.

This is where we are at. The US commits acts of war against Iran. Dedicated public servants are denied their right to pursue nondiscrimination in employment. When someone leaks information that was improperly classified in the first place, the obvious solution is to go after the guy making waves.

That's called retaliation when a private sector employee does it. But when the government does it, it's called national security. Literally, it is a secret of the state. Just another tidbit for MMTers to consider. How, exactly, will employee rights be guaranteed by a government that is so secretive, vindictive, and authoritarian that it prosecutes someone like Jeffrey Sterling?

midwesterners for manning

So I haven't been able to sleep through the storm this morning. Maybe I'm excited to go home for Easter.

For whatever reason, I've decided to put down my two cents on the government's move of Pfc. Bradley Manning from Quantico to Leavenworth. For most folks, that's like the middle of nowhere. But I happen to be from a few miles east of there! So I put together a Facebook page and attached this description. If I've done this right, you can even click the Facebook link right here to like it.



With the government’s surprise announcement in April of 2011 that Private First Class Bradley Manning would be transferred from Marine Corps Base Quantico to the Army’s Fort Leavenworth, you may be wondering, where the heck is Fort Leavenworth? For the 99% of the population that doesn’t live in the Kansas City metropolitan area, here’s a brief primer on the military assets in the nation’s midsection.

Scattered around the region are a couple of army ammunition plants, underground storage facilities courtesy of various limestone mines and caves, the old Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, and Honeywell’s nuclear weapons plant. The major military bases are Whiteman Air Force Base and Fort Leavenworth. Whiteman, a little over an hour east of the KC area, is home to one of the world’s most unique military assets – the fleet of B-2 stealth bombers. On the Kansas side, Leavenworth (also the town’s name), in the northwest corner of the KC area, is the oldest Army post west of the Mississippi River. It serves as one of the Army’s most important training facilities.

But this page isn’t about these installations. This is about a particular human being, raising awareness of his circumstances.

You see, Leavenworth is also home to THE federal prison, the prison of prisons, the Place To Be. Sure, there are infamous prisons like Alcatraz, historic prisons like la Bastille Saint-Antoine, and the superduperultravaluemealmax security facilities that have sprouted all over the country. But if you have been a VIP of the United States Federal Government, you have paid a visit to Leavenworth. (Technical note: there are several separate correctional facilities in the Leavenworth area, so if you are ever writing to or visiting someone, make sure you know exactly where they are, but collectively, it’s easiest to simply refer to them all as ‘Leavenworth’).

Naturally, surprise announcements can cause worry and concern, but two key things about Leavenworth do not need to cause alarm. First, it’s true that this relocation moves Manning away from his attorney and the nation’s capital. But Leavenworth isn’t in the middle of nowhere isolated from the rest of the world. It’s actually closer to a major civilian airport than Quantico. Second, Leavenworth is a major destination for military and civilian prisoners. Places like Quantico and Fort Knox are for lesser sentences of military personnel, and on the civilian side, for much of the 20th century, there were few other United States Penitentiaries of note. (Another technical note: in 2005, the civilian federal prison system expanded and reorganized, building larger maximum security facilities and changing United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth to a medium security installation, ending the prison’s century long role as the largest maximum security prison run by the federal government. The United States Disciplinary Barracks remains the military’s sole maximum security facility.)

In other words, the military has taken now 23 year old Bradley Manning out of the purgatory of indefinite detention amongst run of the mill detainees to move him to the place of the federal government’s worst offenders.

Now, I don’t know whether Manning is ‘guilty’ or ‘innocent’ – I don’t even understand exactly what laws the government claims have been broken. As of the time of this transfer, the government hasn’t even started prosecuting him yet, even though he has been imprisoned since May of 2010. What I do know is that every American citizen, every human being, deserves a few basic rights:

1. Due process
2. A speedy trial
3. Humane treatment
4. Protection from cruel and unusual punishment
5. Access to visitors, including legal counsel, friends, and international observers
6. Equal protection under the law

I also know that information about the activities of our government belongs to We the People, not to our employees in Washington. After all, we don’t imprison Daniel Ellsberg, we celebrate him. The government acted so heinously in the Ellsberg case back in the 1970s that the federal judge hearing the trial dismissed all the charges against the man who leaked what we call the Pentagon Papers.

These principles form the bedrock of our justice system, of our way of life, and not just in DC. We Midwesterners happen to believe in them, too.

Thanks for sharing this page with your family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and elected representatives.

(Note: This summary was compiled by a civilian (me) with no detailed knowledge of either the military or civilian correctional systems. If you have expertise in editing this to be more precise, please feel free to share!)

For more info about the ongoing treatment of Manning, see this website or this one.

pundit4sale

(P) Something that has fascinated me for several years now is how easily some Democratic pundits seem to shift their principles based upon how the wind blows from party leaders. In the short term, it does provide them significant cover in that it is difficult to discern whether they're bought off or honestly believe what they're blathering. But over time, the only value added Dems bring to the equation is inhabiting the reality-based world, in being interested in doing what works.

It's utter nonsense like this spewed by Matthew Yglesias last week - on a Think Progress blog, no less - that starts warranting comparisons to folks like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin. Yglesias is actively proposing that powerful people should be above the law. That's a direct assault on the Constitution, not to mention a market-based economy.

So here's the question. Is Yglesias bought and paid for, knowing that the rule of law is a good thing but being willing to shill for criminals nonetheless? Or does he honestly believe that poor people should go to prison for petty crimes while the rich and powerful should maintain their liberty no matter how heinous the consequences of their actions?

I'm obviously a little partial to the Heartland, but the one-two transpartisan punch of Bill Black at UMKC and Tom Hoenig at the KCFRB over the past couple years has been much more interesting than most of the 'liberal' commentary from Inside the Beltway about how we need to Protect the Financial Fraudsters for the Good of us All.

I eagerly anticipate wittiness from Yglesias in favor of the rule of law. Oh wait, just look to the Bush years.

Like this commentary on Attorney General Mukasey.
Or this one on Bush lawbreaking more generally.

Black's response is worth reading in full. And here is the underlying New York Times article from Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story that set off Yglesias' defense of our rotten system. By the way, how's that for turnabout? The corporate media runs a big story highlighting a major problem, and the 'liberal' blogger Yglesias defends the status quo!

This is also a good place to tie in some commentary from Barry Ritholtz about another NYT article - yes, that's two positive references from me regarding the Times in the same post! Even as the overall US prison population has exploded, the Bush and Obama Justice Departments radically reduced annual referrals of white collar crimes for prosecution. You know, despite the mid-90s having no systemic domestic financial collapse, while a decade plus later, we confront Armageddon that Requires us to Give Rich People Money.

random musings on jury duty

At some indeterminate point in time I may have an indefinite number of observations to make about a specific civil or criminal matter that may or may not be proceeding somewhere in the city of St. Louis.

Until such time, there are a few random thoughts that can clear the censors.

1. Wow, there is either a lot of lawsuits, a prosector's office that is desperate for some extra convictions, or just the whim fancy of coincidence due to only having two data points for reference. Whatever the case, the Jury assembly room was absolutely packed. The last time I was called, I sat for two days in a room that was never more than half full. Yesterday morning, every seat was taken. They were yelling at folks for trying to sit or stand in the aisles.

2. If metal detectors and shoe-wearing is good enough for our court system, how the heck is the TSA's existence justified?

3. Why do they require you to be there by 8:00am on the first day? Nothing was going on.

4. Square this one for me. How does one exercise one's 'intellect and conscience' while also listening to instructions from judges to act without regard for what one believes the law ought to be?

5. Seriously, think about number 4.

6. Downtown is actually pretty nice on a sunny fall day.

7. Communicate end times for the day. Is it so hard to tell folks when they will leave and get them bus passes ahead of time so that if you have to, say, to pick a completely random example, get your car from the shop by 5:30 pm, you know that 1) you will be able to get there by then, or 2) you won't be able to get there by then and should make alternate plans now, long before 5:20pm.

8. Is Jury duty a 'duty' or a 'privilege'? Listening to how many folks aren't eligible is a hodge-podge of hierarchy, class, oppression, and what not. Active duty? Under 21? Felony conviction? I continue to be surprised I've only been called twice in the entire time I've been living in St. Louis.