The state  is not omnipotent, we know it and this is what it fears — we are a fundamental threat to its power.

This is why Manning became such a target. While US president Barack Obama was extending old and beginning new wars (and getting himself a Peace Prize), Manning’s actions caused exactly zero deaths. Manning’s actions did not terrorize families with fist or gun or bomb. But Manning did directly challenge power in war time – and in war time state power is at its greatest.

This war is a war without an end. A “War on Terror” — against an adjective where countless people have been affected. This war is an incredible assault on living, breathing human beings, the very type of terror campaign it is supposed to oppose. In the name of this war the US government has occupied cities, destroyed lives and shattered any hope of liberty for people living in the territories targeted by military interventionism. This war has also, surely, fostered even more “blow back” against civilians under the rule of government.

This war has carried over two administrations. It has gone through waves of shock and awe and high tech drones. It has ended and injured the lives of troops sacrificed by a power drunk government. It has ended the lives of millions of innocent civilians – children, women and men. It has maimed even more and displaced an endless number of people. It has allowed the worlds most powerful nation state to become even more repressive. It has created a giant security complex – dedicated to bombs and bribes and back room deals. Dedicated, no matter the human cost, to an endless campaign of aggression.

As we learn the fate of PFC Manning, this is truly a time to mourn. Our hearts go out to Manning. Our hearts go out to the countless lives impacted by these unlawful wars. We lament that such a peaceful act could be met with such brutal force, while the brutal forces of the machines of war are hardly protested. Our blood boils because of this injustice.

We stand in solidarity with PFC Manning and the peace his actions stand for. The state has grown far too large. The centralized, federated nation-state is a great agent of repression. Its power lies in the hands of state servants who wish to extinguish what tiny flames of liberty are left among us. But for many, this sentence has inspired a howl so large that these flames may rage into a roaring fire.  If such an injustice can come down on Manning then it can come down on any of us who wish to challenge the immoral actions of the state. May the mighty fist of solidarity vanquish this state!

Podemos ver isso na maneira pela qual o estado de segurança nacional tem reagido a vazamentos, primeiro pelo Soldado de Primeira Classe – PFC Bradley Manning e agora pelo ex-empreiteiro da Agência de Segurança Nacional – NSA Edward Snowden. Hugh Gusterton, noBoletim dos Cientistas Atômicos (“Nem Todos os Segredos São Similares,” 23 de julho), observa que o governo está tomando medidas para evitar vazamentos da espécie mediante “segmentar o acesso à informação, de tal maneira que analistas individuais não possam tirar tanto proveito, e mediante dar menos permissões de segurança, especialmente a empregados de empreiteiras.”

Essa abordagem está fadada ao fracasso. “A segmentação de acesso vai no sentido contrário a toda a filosofia da mais recente estratégia da inteligência, que é a de fusão de dados oriundos de fontes diversas. Quanto mais balcanizados os dados, menos eficaz a inteligência. E … as agências de inteligência estão coletando tanta informação que têm de contratar vasto número de empregados novos, muitos dos quais não podem ser adequadamente investigados.”

No entretempo, a atmosfera interna de caça às bruxas no aparato de segurança dos Estados Unidos está alienando os próprios hackers de trabalho contratado de cujas habilidades tal aparato depende cada vez mais. O adesivo da Fundação da Fronteira Eletrônica (EFF) no laptop de Snowden não foi uma deflexão que a liderança da NSA deixou passar batido. É típico do reservatório cultural de onde a NSA, inevitavelmente, recruta seus empreiteiros. Essas pessoas leem as notícias, e não ficam impressionadas com o tratamento draconiano dispensado pelo governo a pessoas como Aaron Swartz, Bradley Manning e Edward Snowden. Os recrutadores estão enfrentando crescente ceticismo entre aqueles que dominam as habilidades das quais o aparato precisa; a recepção fria ao chefe da NSA Keith Alexander no DefCon é simbólica dessa nova atmosfera.

Ademais, como estagiário anônimo da EFF observa, até pessoas idealistas que acreditam na missão da NSA veem-se paralisadas pela atmosfera crescentemente hostil, com medo até de digitar código em terminal temendo descobrir, depois do fato consumado, terem violado uma das vagas e kafkaescas disposições da Lei Relativa a Abuso e Fraude em Computação – CFAA.

Tudo isso está acontecendo ao mesmo tempo em que as agências de escuta são inundadas por quantidade sempre crescente e inadministrável de dados brutos. A proporção de palheiro para agulha vem aumentando exponencialmente. Quanto maior o volume de dados brutos a ser analisado algoritmicamente, maior o número de falsos positivos que o sistema gera. O simples volume de falsos positivos, e a proporção de falsos positivos em relação a pistas genuínas, são suficientes para paralisar o governo. No passado, em 2009, o Departamento de Segurança da Pátria não teve como reagir a tempo para deter o Explodidor da Roupa de Baixo quando seu próprio pai notificou-o de que o filho planejava explodir um avião.

As próprias pessoas que o estado de segurança está mais interessado em monitorar — de terroristas genuínos a dissidentes internos como Snowden e o movimento occupy — reagem a cada aumento da escuta tornando-se mais opacas ao governo. O escândalo Snowden resultou numa crista de adoção de medidas como a criptografia PGP ou a navegação TOR. Enquanto a NSA coleta cada vez mais palha, mais e mais agulhas silenciosamente caem fora do palheiro.

O estado de segurança dos Estados Unidos e seus órgãos, no longo prazo, estão condenados ao fracasso pelo mesmo motivo que o estão todas as hierarquias autoritárias: Padecem de parvoíce. E as pessoas que eles estão tentando controlar são espertas.

Artigo original afixado por Kevin Carson em 9 de agosto de 2013.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

Isso mesmo, você leu certo: Há apenas “inimigo” passível de ser ajudado, em qualquer sentido legal, se os Estados Unidos estiverem em guerra, situação caracterizada por declaração do Congresso. Desde a Segunda Guerra Mundial isso não acontece.

Lind tinha um único dever legal como juíza nesse processo: Arquivar todas as acusações por causa da falha do governo quanto a cumprir o prazo fatal do “julgamento rápido.” Se os Estados Unidos fossem, nas palavras de John Adams, “governo de leis, não de homens,” seria isso exatamente o que teria sido feito.

Os superiores de Lind também tinham claro dever — tirá-la do cargo depois daquela primeira sentença ilegal e acusá-la com base no Artigo 98 do Código Uniforme da Justiça Militar:

Qualquer pessoa sujeita a este capítulo que –

(1) seja responsável por demora desnecessária na condução de qualquer processo relativo a pessoa acusada de ofensa nos termos deste capítulo, ou

(2) Consciente e intencionalmente deixe de fazer cumprir ou de cumprir qualquer disposição deste capítulo regulamentadora dos procedimentos antes, durante, ou depois do julgamento de acusado; será punida como corte marcial possa orientar.

Não, não estou realmente chocado por nada disso ter acontecido. É o normal. As leis, inclusive a “lei suprema do país,” também conhecida como a Constituição dos Estados Unidos, é para nós, gente pequena. O governo dos Estados Unidos não precisa dela nem a quer, exceto para uso como camuflagem. Ele faz o que quer que deseje fazer (ou melhor, o que quer que os membros dominantes da classe política estadunidense digam para ele fazer).

A única lição razoável do julgamento de Manning é que o “estado de direito” estadunidense é um embuste. O governo dos Estados Unidos não funciona dentro das restrições da Constituição ao poder do estado, nem honra aquela lista, na Constituição, de direitos individuais consagrados. Nunca o fez exceto quando sob extrema compulsão e nunca o fará em qualquer coisa do tipo condições normais.

O corolário: se o governo dos Estados Unidos não é restringido por suas próprias alegadas regras, por que diabos qualquer pessoa o seria?

Artigo original afixado por Thomas L. Knapp em 18 de julho de 2013.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

We can see this in the way the national security state has responded to leaks, first by US Army PFC Bradley Manning and now by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Hugh Gusterton, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (“Not All Secrets are Alike,” July 23), notes that the government is taking measures to avoid future such leaks by “segmenting access to information so that individual analysts cannot avail themselves of so much, and by giving fewer security clearances, especially to employees of contractors.”

This approach is doomed. “Segmentation of access runs counter to the whole point of the latest intelligence strategy, which is fusion of data from disparate sources. The more Balkanized the data, the less effective the intelligence. And … intelligence agencies are collecting so much information that they have to hire vast numbers of new employees, many of whom cannot be adequately vetted.”

Meanwhile, the internal witch hunt atmosphere in the U.S. security apparatus is alienating the very contract-work hackers whose skills it is increasingly dependent on. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sticker on Snowden’s laptop wasn’t a deviation the NSA’s leadership failed to catch. It’s typical of the cultural pool from which the NSA, of necessity, recruits its contractors. Such people read the news, and they aren’t impressed with the government’s draconian treatment of people like Aaron Swartz, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Recruiters are running up against increased skepticism among those with the skills it needs; the chilly reception NSA chief Keith Alexander met with at DefCon is symbolic of this new atmosphere.

Further, as an anonymous former EFF intern notes, even idealistic young people who believe in the NSA’s mission find themselves paralyzed by the increasingly adversarial atmosphere, afraid even to type code into a terminal for fear of learning after the fact that they violated one of the CFAA’s vague, Kafkaesque provisions.

All this is happening even as surveillance agencies are deluged with ever-increasing, unmanageable amounts of raw data. The ratio of hay to needles is growing exponentially. The larger the volume of raw data to be analyzed algorithmically, the larger the number of false positives the system generates. The sheer volume of false positives, and the ratio of false positives to genuine leads, is enough to paralyze government. Back in 2009, Homeland Security couldn’t react in time to stop the Underwear Bomber when his own father directly notified them he was planning to blow up a plane.

The very people the security state is most interested in monitoring — ranging from genuine terrorists to domestic dissidents like Snowden and the occupy movement — respond to every increase in surveillance by making themselves more opaque to the government. The Snowden scandal resulted in a spike in adoption of measures like PGP encryption and TOR browsing. Even as the NSA is hoovering up more and more hay, more and more needles quietly remove themselves from the haystack.

The U.S. security state and its agencies, in the long run, are doomed for the same reason that all authoritarian hierarchies are doomed: They’re stupid. And the people they’re trying to control are smart.

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, A Reação do Estado a Snowden Mostra Por Que o Estado Está Fadado ao Fracasso.

O material em razão do qual Manning está encrencado por vazar inclui sequência com tripulantes de helicópteros estadunidenses atirando avidamente em civis iraquianos, inclusive em ocupantes de uma van que tentava levar embora pessoas feridas. Os assassinos gargalhantes flagrados na fita não parecem ter sofrido quaisquer consequências oficiais, mas o soldado que expôs os assassínios ao escrutínio do público foi detido.

A crescente desilusão de Manning com o Exército foi pontilhada de episódios que incluíram a descoberta, por ele, de iraquianos terem sido detidos por criticar corrupção no gabinete do Primeiro-Ministro. Depois de ele ter levado o problema a seus superiores, foi-lhe dito que calasse a boca e fizesse mais detenções. Finalmente, em face de corte marcial e da mais dura “justiça militar,” Manning teria decidido entregar informações secretas ao Wikileaks.

Surgiram problemas quando ele conversou a respeito de seus próprios atos com a pessoa errada. Adrian Lamo, havendo decidido tomar o lado da ocupação e dos encobrimentos de assassínios, forneceu a investigadores registros de comunicações nos quais Manning teria discutido sua violação da lei.

Portanto, Manning sentiu necessidade de conversar. Talvez até de vangloriar-se para alguém. Foi erro tático que não torna suas ações em nada menos honoráveis. As pessoas deveriam apenas agir altruisticamente e negarem orgulho e ambição? Ninguém se enquadra em padrão assim. Manning apenas deixou de exercer avaliação adequada.

Detraidores têm tentado invalidar as ações de Manning afirmando que ele tinha problemas psicológicos ou dizendo que ele estava encrencado por agredir outro soldado. Se alguém não conseguir manter-se composto enquanto concebe a coisa certa a fazer, isso apenas mostrará essa pessoa não ser forte o suficiente para controlar o tempo todo forças que abalam sua consciência. E, de qualquer modo, quem é racional o tempo todo?

Quanto a alegações de agressão, Manning exercia profissão cujo propósito explícito é praticar violência. Se usou de violência inadequadamente, a melhor coisa a fazer seria tentar fazer restituição e redimir-se. Expor a violência que o sistema tenta ocultar parece bom passo rumo a esse objetivo.

Por que não deveria Manning estar irado com o sistema e com aqueles sabidamente cúmplices dele? Se a opressão não fosse tão causadora de fúria, poderia nunca vir a ser combatida.

Todo mundo tem de lidar com a ansiedade e todo mundo comete equívocos. O herói não é alguém sem fraquezas. Herói é quem consegue fazer a coisa certa a despeito de suas fraquezas.

Manning entendeu a tirania da organização dentro da qual desempenhava parte ativa. Em vez de forçar-se a engolir mais propaganda ou de cometer suicídio, fez algo positivo a respeito.

Como disse Henry David Thoreau em Desobediência Civil, “Tem o cidadão, mesmo por um momento, ou no grau mais mínimo, de abrir mão de sua consciência em favor do legislador? Mas então por que todo homem tem consciência?”

Bradley Manning não abriu mão de sua consciência em favor de seus superiores ou de formuladores de políticas.

Sua escolha moral oferece exemplo no qual outros se inspirarem. Se mais soldados, comandantes e políticos assumissem responsabilidade por suas ações e honestamente avaliassem as reivindicações de autoridade neles marteladas desde o nascimento, o mundo seria muito melhor.

Alçar heróis até padrão irrealista de perfeição é o mesmo que idolatrar mentiras. A verdade é, ninguém é tão nobre. Algumas pessoas elevam-se acima de suas próprias falhas e fazem grandes coisas. Quando Bradley Manning descobriu ser cúmplice na violenta supressão da liberdade, fez o melhor que pôde para endireitar as coisas.

E agora queda numa cela de prisão enquanto aqueles que formulam as políticas da morte dormem confortavelmente.

Artigo original afixado por Darian Worden 21 de julho de 2010.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

Manning — if indeed guilty of supplying thousands of military and state department documents to Wikileaks — has certainly helped to promote anarchism. Exposing the corrupt reality of the state — its lies, torture, atrocities and collusion with authoritarian governments against their own people — behind all the talk of “peace” and “freedom” is the method of promoting anarchism. But equally deserving of credit, in helping us further the cause of anarchy, are Major Fein himself and everyone else involved in the Manning show trial.

The charges leveled against Manning, and the lengths to which they have gone to have their vengeance against him, have done more than a thousand anarchist tracts could do to show the fraudulent nature of so-called “representative democracy.”

The most serious charge against Manning was “aiding the enemy.” Although this was the sole charge of which military judge Denise Lind acquitted him, the fact that the entire executive branch brought its full force to bear in pushing such charges in the first place is significant. According to the Obama administration, Manning “indirectly” provided the enemy with classified information, by releasing it to be published in venues where he knew it would be accessible to the enemy.

Now, let’s stop to think about who this “enemy” might be. What kind of information did the leaked documents reveal? They revealed

• war crimes by U.S. military forces, murdering civilians and journalists in cold blood;
• torture by U.S. military personnel;
• the corrupt dealings of U.S. State Department and other functionaries with the local authoritarian governments of the Middle East, including secret authorizations by local governments for the use of American drones to carry out extrajudicial killings on their own territory — facts that would have resulted in rioting in the streets.

I doubt any of this was surprising to al Qaeda. They almost certainly assumed it to be true. If exposing this stuff “aided” al Qaeda in any way, it did so only by giving them hard evidence of the truth to share with those who weren’t already aware of it — namely the publics of the Middle East, the U.S. and its allies, and the world. And this would be harmful to the interests of the U.S. government only to the extent that it was true — i.e., to the extent that it revealed to the allegedly sovereign people of the allegedly democratic United States the real nature of “their” government’s policy, or revealed to the people of the Middle East what kind of sham democracy the U.S. was promoting in their region.

The U.S. government fears an informed American people, and an informed world public opinion, far more than it ever feared al Qaeda. What we’ve called “representative democracy,” since the rise of universal suffrage in the West a century or so ago, has been an elaborate exercise in securing the outcome desired by ruling elites — preserving an intersecting alliance of corporate and state oligarchies — while maintaining the fiction of popular rule.

This ruling class has maintained its power mainly through what Edward Bernays called “manufacturing consent” — carefully restricting the range of alternatives on the table and shaping public consciousness to see that restricted range as exhaustive. The range is bounded, basically, by the preferences of the left and right wings of the corporate elite. It encompasses only measures consistent with, and which can largely be carried out by the people running, the present structure of power. Anything else is deemed “extremist” or “silly,” beyond the range of thought of Serious People.

The basic structural presuppositions of this system are justified in terms of inevitability and necessity — because it’s the only conceivable way of efficiently organizing things. For the American people, a decentralized and horizontally organized society without centralized state power, Fortune 500 corporations, giant banks and millionaire CEOs must be as unthinkable as an Animal Farm without a class of pigs (well fed on apples and milk, of course) to manage problems beyond the competence of mere lower animals. It requires distracting the public from any awareness that “another world is possible,” or that the present system exists to serve not the public, but rather the interests of those running things.

Manning committed the one unforgivable sin in a sham representative democracy: He let the “sovereign” people in on what “their” government is really doing, and whose interests it’s really serving. For that, the political class will never forgive him.

I possess neither Emile Zola’s writing talent nor his penchant for presidential flattery, but I think I may perhaps lay rightful claim to some semblance of his well-developed sense of moral outrage.

I address you as “president” only as a concession to popular convention. In truth, your claimed authority is a fraud, and your actual status is that of defendant in the matter of the persecution of Bradley Manning.

From the beginnings of this drama, it was clear to all who cared to notice that Manning is no criminal but rather the worthy nemesis of a crime syndicate formally headed by yourself. He was wrongfully arrested, illegally detained without charge for a period far in excess of the legally prescribed maximums, and finally and illegally put on trial not for his alleged criminal acts but for exposing your crimes and the crimes of your gang, “the government of the United States.”

Neither the verdict nor the sentence are any surprise; the “not guilty” verdict on the charge of “aiding the enemy” is clearly intended as a distraction from the irrefutable fact that the entire trial was a farce and a sham, conducted in open violation of the law, and that not a single charge is valid. The purposes of show trials and the punishments which follow are to procure convictions and make the public quail in terror before the awesome power of the state, not to render justice, and in this respect the Manning court martial puts Stalin to shame. Colonel Denise Lind’s blatantly and irrefutably illegal actions and rulings as “judge” would make Vyshinsky blush.

The Manning show trial is the latest evidence that Thomas Paine erred in claiming that “society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.”

While the state is indeed evil, it is far from necessary. It is wicked through and through. It is born of coercion, weaned on theft, raised on corruption and thrives on murder.

In the round it can do not good at all, and any specific good it may seem to do must rest on a foundation of evil.

To give me a dollar it picks your pocket for two. To feed your child lunch it deprives a family of dinner. If it suffers you and your neighbors to live it murders a village elsewhere, and if it removes so much as an ounce of weight from your chest that you might breathe easier, it places a pound on your shoulders and orders you to carry.

To willingly tolerate the continued existence of such an evil, or to purposely delay, impede or oppose that evil’s abolition, is to become an accessory to that evil.

As an anarchist, it goes without saying that I support the abolition of the state. The Manning show trial is one more argument for appending to that statement the clauses “as soon as humanly possible” and “by any means necessary.”

Yes, you read that right: There’s only an “enemy” to aid, in any legal sense, if the United States is at war, a state created by a congressional declaration. There’s been no such declaration since World War II.

Lind had only one legal duty as judge in this case: To dismiss all charges due to the government’s failure to meet the “speedy trial” deadline. If the United States was, as John Adams put it, “a government of laws, not of men,” that’s exactly what she would have done.

Lind’s superiors had a clear duty as well — to remove her from the bench after that first illegal ruling and charge her under Article 98 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice:

Any person subject to this chapter who —

(1) is responsible for unnecessary delay in the disposition of any case of a person accused of an offense under this chapter; or

(2) Knowingly and intentionally fails to enforce or comply with any provision of this chapter regulating the proceedings before, during, or after trial of an accused; shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

No, I’m not really shocked that none of this happened. It’s par for the course. Laws, including the “supreme law of the land,” aka the US Constitution, are for us little people. The US government doesn’t need or want them, except for use as camouflage. It does whatever it wants to do (or rather whatever the ruling members of the American political class tell it to do).

The only reasonable takeaway from the Manning trial is that American “rule of law” is a sham. The US government doesn’t operate within the Constitution’s constraints on state power, nor does it honor that Constitution’s list of enshrined individual rights. It never has done so absent extreme compulsion and it never will do so on anything like a regular basis.

The corollary: If the US government isn’t bound by its own alleged rules, why on Earth would anyone else be?

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, O Julgamento de Fachada de Manning: Esses Momentos Instrutivos.

As the Zimmerman trial has been conducted, so too has the trial of Bradley Manning. Manning has become a household name among civil libertarians, but not to the majority of Americans.

Manning is a US Army soldier arrested in May 2010 for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks. Since his detention he has been charged with 22 offenses, including “aiding the enemy.” Perhaps the most well-known of the Manning leaks is the video showing war crimes — the repeated targeting of un-armed men, news informants and children — by US troops in Iraq. This leak raises disturbing questions about US foreign policy and is being treated as espionage rather than whistle blowing by the government (as is the Edward Snowden case).

What’s the difference between the Zimmerman case and the Manning case? Both trials are current, but there is no national discourse for Manning. One cannot make broad claims as to why, but maybe the answer lies in our conceptions of justice.

The system of justice utilized by the United States is “procedural justice.” In this system justice is a procedure, not an outcome. The system depends on due process rights and adherence to law.

What the American public tends to champion is “retributive justice” — justice based in the outcome of a trial. If a defendant is believed to be guilty in the public conscience then “justice” is only served if said defendant is found guilty.

“Restorative justice,” however, encourages deep reflection. It focuses on the needs of the victims, the offenders and the impacted community. This type of justice is not concerned with procedure. Victims here take an active part in the process of justice and offenders are held accountable for, and take ownership of, their actions. Restorative justice focuses on human need and seeks solutions/support so that future offenses are prevented. Here, crime is done to individuals or communities instead of the state. It is the “why” — and what to do about it.

In restorative justice we see a major difference in the cases. In the much sensationalized Zimmerman trial we see a trial involving two individuals — more importantly, two Americans. We see historical tensions, social justice issues, and questions of power, force and race. We are all a part of this history, but we did not all participate in the crime, allowing us to reflect and form opinions of how to move forward.

This is where Bradley Manning is different. The same issues are raised, but we are all implicated in the story. It isn’t a crime among two individuals. This information charges all of us. It is our nation-state that has waged a never ending war on terror. It is our republic that is the offender. There are millions of victims and the global community is watching.

Perhaps we demanded coverage of the Zimmerman trial because there is a way to move forward, objectives achievable in the short term and clear goals for the long term. We are taking a national interest because Americans are involved and we wish to move the nation forward.

With the Bradley Manning case, however, our entire system is at war with “others.” Without dissent we support this behavior. We as a nation are the offenders. This makes us uncomfortable. The thought of owning up to our crimes is daunting, and what to do about US imperial hegemony — well, that makes us really uncomfortable. Instead of a calling to move our nation forward, hegemony gives us pause. It calls for deconstruction of our existing military, economic and political class.

One case rightly calls for a better nation, the other calls for the torch of liberty — our lost ideal.