Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning[3] (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower.[4][5][6] She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly 750,000 classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents.[7] She was imprisoned from 2010 until 2017 when her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama.[8] A trans woman, Manning said in 2013 that she had a female gender identity since childhood and wanted to be known as Chelsea Manning.[9]
Chelsea Manning
December 17, 1987
Classified document disclosure to WikiLeaks
Violating the Espionage Act, stealing government property, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, multiple counts of disobeying orders[1]
35 years imprisonment (commuted to 7 years total confinement), reduction in rank to private (E-1 or PVT), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, dishonorable discharge[2]
- Active duty: 2007–2010
- Confinement: 2010–2017
Private (formerly Specialist)
2nd BCT, 10th Mountain Division (former)
Assigned in 2009 to an Army unit in Iraq as an intelligence analyst, Manning had access to classified databases. In early 2010, she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance.[10] Lamo indirectly informed the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, and Manning was arrested in May 2010.[11] The material included videos of the July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables;[12] and 482,832 Army reports that came to be known as the "Iraq War Logs"[13] and "Afghan War Diary".[14] The material was published by WikiLeaks and its media partners between April 2010 and April 2011.
Manning was charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, which was the most serious charge and could have resulted in a death sentence.[15] She was held at the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico in Virginia, from July 2010 to April 2011, under Prevention of Injury status—which entailed de facto solitary confinement and other restrictions that caused domestic and international concern[16]—before being transferred to the Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she could interact with other detainees.[17] In February 2013 she pleaded guilty to 10 of the charges.[18] The trial on the remaining charges began on June 3, 2013, and on July 30, she was convicted of 17 of the original charges and amended versions of four others, but acquitted of aiding the enemy.[19] She was sentenced to 35 years at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.[20][21] On January 17, 2017, Obama commuted Manning's sentence to nearly seven years of confinement dating from her arrest in May 2010.[8][22][23] After release, Manning makes her living through speaking engagements.[24]
In 2018, Manning challenged incumbent Senator Ben Cardin for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate election in her home state of Maryland.[25] She received 6.1% of the vote; Cardin won renomination with 79.2%.[26]
From March 8, 2019, to March 12, 2020 (except for a week from May 9 to 16), Manning was jailed for contempt and fined $256,000 for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.[27][28]
Background
Early life
Born in 1987 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,[29] Manning is the second child of Susan Fox, who is Welsh, and Brian Manning, an American. Brian had joined the United States Navy in 1974, at age 19, and served five years as an intelligence analyst. He met Susan while stationed in Wales at RAF Brawdy.[30] Manning has an older sister. The couple returned to the U.S. in 1979, settling first in California. After moving near Crescent, Oklahoma, they bought a house with five acres of land, where they kept pigs and chickens.[31][32]
Manning's sister told the court-martial that both their parents were alcoholics, and that their mother drank continually while pregnant with Chelsea. Captain David Moulton, a Navy psychiatrist, told the court that Manning's facial features showed signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.[33] The sister became Manning's principal caregiver, waking at night to prepare the baby's bottle. The court heard that Manning was fed only milk and baby food until the age of two. As an adult she reached 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) and weighed around 105 pounds (48 kg).[34][35]
Manning's father took a job as an information technology (IT) manager for a rental car agency, The Hertz Corporation,[36] which required travel. The family lived several miles out of town, and Manning's mother was unable to drive. She spent her days drinking, while Manning was left largely to herself playing with Lego toys or on the computer. Brian stocked up on food before his trips and left signed checks that the sister mailed to pay the bills. A neighbor said that whenever Manning's elementary school went on field trips, she would give her own son extra food or money so he could make sure Manning had something to eat. Friends and neighbors considered the Mannings a troubled family.[37][38][39][40][41]
Parents' divorce, move to Wales
As a child, Manning was opinionated about the intersection of religion and politics.[42] For example, she invariably remained silent during the part of the Pledge of Allegiance that makes reference to God.[43][44]
In a 2011 interview, Manning's father said, "People need to understand that he's a young man that had a happy life growing up." He also said that Manning excelled at the saxophone, science, and computers, and created a website at the age of 10. Manning learned how to use PowerPoint, won the grand prize three years in a row at the local science fair, and in sixth grade, took top prize at a statewide quiz bowl.[38][39][45]
United States v. Manning
United States of America v. Manning, Bradley E., PFC
July 30, 2013
Article 32 hearing, opened December 16, 2011
Formally charged, February 23, 2012
Article 39 (pretrial) hearing, opened April 24, 2012
Colonel Denise Lind
Awards and tributes
In 2011, the German Section of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms and the Federation of German Scientists awarded Manning a "Whistleblowerpreis".[261] While still in detention in 2011, Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills and Nash released a song, "Almost Gone (The Ballad of Bradley Manning)", in reference to her deteriorated mental state.[262] In 2012, she received a "People's Choice Award" from Global Exchange.[263] In 2013, the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation awarded her the U.S. Peace Prize "for conspicuous bravery, at the risk of his own freedom, above and beyond the call of duty."[264] The same year, the International Peace Bureau awarded her the Sean MacBride Peace Prize.[265] In 2014, Sam Adams Associates gave her the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence.[266][267]
Icelandic and Swedish Pirate Party MPs nominated Manning and fellow whistleblower Edward Snowden for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2013, Roots Action launched a petition nominating Manning for the prize that received more than 100,000 supporting signatures.[268]
In May 2015, Anything to Say?, an art installation made of mobile bronze statues of Manning, Snowden, and Assange, was placed at Berlin's Alexanderplatz for a weekend, as a "monument for courage".[269] Germany's Green Party sponsored the sculpture, by Italian sculptor Davide Dormino.[270] The installation was later exhibited in different European cities.[271]
In 2015, Paper magazine commissioned artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg to create 2D DNA phenotype portraits of Manning using DNA collected from cheek swabs and hair clippings Manning sent the artist while incarcerated.[272] 3D printed versions of the portraits premiered at the World Economic Forum in 2016.[273] In the summer of 2017, Manning (by then released from prison) and Dewey-Hagborg presented their collaboration at an exhibition at the Fridman Gallery in New York City.[274][275]
In September 2017, Manning accepted the EFF Pioneer Award in recognition of her actions as a whistleblower and for her work as an advocate for government transparency and transgender rights.[276] In November, she was named 2017 Newsmaker of the Year by Out, which noted her "whistle-in-the-wind tenacity that belies the trauma she's had to contend with".[277] Later that month, Bitch listed her among the first-ever "Bitch 50" impactful creators, artists, and activists in pop culture, recognizing her as "a leading voice for transgender and healthcare rights".[278] In December, Foreign Policy honored Manning as one of its forty-eight 2017 Global Thinkers "for forcing the United States to question who is a traitor and who is a hero".[279]
In October 2020, Manning shared with the German nonprofit investigative journalism organization CORRECT!V and Greece's anonymous Novartis whistleblowers the third annual European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) prize for Journalists, Whistleblowers and Defenders of the Right to Information.[280] The GUE/NGL posted a video of her acceptance from her home in Brooklyn, New York.[281]
Gender transition
2010–2013
In an article written by Manning, she says her first public appearance as female was in February 2010 while on leave from her military duties; Manning was exhilarated to blend in as a woman.[282]
On August 22, 2013, the day after sentencing, Manning's attorney issued a press release to the Today show announcing that his client was a female, and asked that she be referred to by her new name of Chelsea and feminine pronouns. Manning's statement included the following: