August, 21 2013, 10:14am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Manning Sentenced Today
The sentence for Bradley Manning is expected to be delivered beginning at 10:00 a.m. today. The following individuals have been closely following the Manning case:
RAINEY REITMAN, rainey@pressfreedomfoundation.org, @RaineyReitman
Reitman recently wrote "Bradley Manning Did Not Hurt the United States." She serves as director of the activism team at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
WASHINGTON
The sentence for Bradley Manning is expected to be delivered beginning at 10:00 a.m. today. The following individuals have been closely following the Manning case:
RAINEY REITMAN, rainey@pressfreedomfoundation.org, @RaineyReitman
Reitman recently wrote "Bradley Manning Did Not Hurt the United States." She serves as director of the activism team at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
KEVIN GOSZTOLA, kevin.gosztola@firedoglake.com, @kgosztola
Gosztola is a civil liberties blogger at Firedoglake, and is one of only a handful of journalists covering the Manning trial on a daily basis. His recent pieces include "Brief Thoughts on the Experience of Covering Bradley Manning's Court Martial" and "Jeffrey Toobin Preaches on Sanctity of Government Secrets Despite Once Stealing Classified Documents."
NORMAN SOLOMON, solomonprogressive at gmail.com
USA Today recently published "Manning Deserves Nobel Peace Prize" by Solomon. He delivered a petition to the Nobel Committee of 100,000 people urging that Manning receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Solomon is founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org
CLAIRE LEBOWITZ, clairelebowitz at gmail.com
Lebowitz wrote "Bradass87," a new play about Bradley Manning.
BOB HARMON, bobnbob at pacbell.net
Former chair of the Marin, California ACLU, Harmon has followed the trial and written on matters of military law and is a retired U.S. army reserve officer.
NATHAN FULLER, nathanlfuller at gmail.com, @nathanLfuller, @SaveBradley
Also via Emma Cape, emma at bradleymanning.org
Fuller is with the Bradley Manning Support Network and has been blogging every day of the trial. The group sent out an advisory noting that "David Coombs, lead attorney for WikiLeaks whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning, will give a statement and answer questions from the press, three hours after military judge Colonel Denise Lind delivers Manning's sentence. Today, Judge Lind announced that she would deliver her sentence at 10:00 a.m. so the press conference will start at approximately 1:30 p.m." Coombs is expected to announce pardon.bradleymanning.org.
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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'McCarthyism Is Alive and Well': Google Fires 28 for Protesting Israel Contract
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The peace coalition No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of a "flagrant act of retaliation" late Wednesday night as the Silicon Valley giant announced it had fired 28 workers over protests against its cloud services contract with the Israeli government.
The firings came after Google organizers held two 10-hour sit-ins at the company's offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City, demanding the termination of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract under which Google and Amazon provide cloud infrastructure and data services for Israel—without any oversight regarding whether the Israel Defense Forces uses the services in its occupation of Palestinian territories and bombardment of Gaza.
Workers have denounced Project Nimbus since it was announced in 2021, but Israel's killing of at least 33,970 Palestinians in Gaza since October and its intentional starvation of civilians led employees to escalate their protests.
No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement that Google officials called the police to both offices to arrest nine protesters—dubbed the Nimbus Nine—on Tuesday morning, before utilizing "a dragnet of in-office surveillance" to fire nearly two dozen other employees on Wednesday.
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Google accused the workers of "bullying," "harassment," defacing property, and physically impeding other employees—allegations No Tech for Apartheid rejected as it noted organizers "have yet to hear from a single executive about" their concerns over Google's collaboration with Israel.
"This excuse to avoid confronting us and our concerns directly, and attempt to justify its illegal, retaliatory firings, is a lie," said the workers. "Even the workers who were participating in a peaceful sit-in and refusing to leave did not damage property or threaten other workers. Instead they received an overwhelmingly positive response and shows of support."
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Kate J. Sim, a child safety policy adviser at Google who said she was among those fired this week, said the terminations show "how terrified [executives] are of worker power."
Google employees have a history of harnessing worker power to change policies at the company. In 2018, Google terminated a deal with the U.S. Defense Department to develop drone and artificial intelligence (AI) technology through a contract called Project Maven. The decision followed the resignations of several employees and the condemnation of thousands of workers.
Calling Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian "genocide profiteers," No Tech for Apartheid said Wednesday that they will not stop demonstrating against Project Nimbus until they get a similar result.
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The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
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