Secret Government Report: Chelsea Manning Leaks Caused No Real Harm by Jason Leopold.
From the post:
In the seven years since WikiLeaks published the largest leak of classified documents in history, the federal government has said they caused enormous damage to national security.
But a secret, 107-page report, prepared by a Department of Defense task force and newly obtained by BuzzFeed News, tells a starkly different story: It says the disclosures were largely insignificant and did not cause any real harm to US interests.
Regarding the hundreds of thousands of Iraq-related military documents and State Department cables provided by the Army private Chelsea Manning, the report assessed “with high confidence that disclosure of the Iraq data set will have no direct personal impact on current and former U.S. leadership in Iraq.”
…
The 107 page report, redacted, runs 35 pages. Thanks to BuzzFeed News for prying that much of a semblance of the truth out of the government.
It is further proof that US prosecutors and other federal government representatives lie to the courts, the press and the public, whenever its suits their purposes.
Anyone with transcripts from the original Manning hearings, should identify statements by prosecutors at variance with this report, noting the prosecutor’s name, rank and recording the page/line reference in the transcript.
That individual prosecutors and federal law enforcement witnesses lie is a commonly known fact. What I haven’t seen, is a central repository of all such liars and the lies they have told.
I mention a central repository because to say one or two prosecutors have lied or been called down by a judge grabs a headline, but showing a pattern over decades of lying by the state, that could move to an entirely different level.
Judges, even conservative ones (especially conservative ones?), don’t appreciate being lied to by anyone, including the state.
The state has chosen lying as its default mode of operation.
Let’s help them wear that banner.
Interested?