Unfortunately, this idea eventually waned or all but ceased for a couple of reasons. One is the taming of labor, the tying of its interests with the State’s and with big business. The other reason, diminishing rewards. Anarchists and revolting workers were regularly shot by police or locked in prison for years. Insisting on your freedom is great, sure, but not when it comes at the price of a decrease in your ability to act. Individual liberation is, unfortunately, hard work. And if all we face is a seemingly endless struggle, why bother?

We are here to propose a solution to this lack of incentive. In Summer 2013, a market opened up on the darknet dedicated to betting on the assassination of a public figures. In particular, these public figures need to be of the political class. A couple of months ago, this idea sparked a bit of controversy when a Forbes article featured it. And while the website is new and revolutionary, the idea has been around for quite some time. The goal? To incentivize political leaders in a new and profound way to obey what the public wants, and to diminish the amount of culpability of any particular better should an assassination takes place. The use of a crypto-currency, in order to obscure the identity of the better(s), has also been enabled with the popularization of Bitcoin, and now even further with Cody Wilson’s Dark Wallet. The original idea comes compliments of Jim Bell, one of the founders of crypto-anarchism and the author of Assassination Politics. He was subsequently hunted down by the federal government and has been in and out of prison for over a decade.

What does this market and the idea of assassination politics have to do with direct action? Incentivizing individual acts of sabotage, vandalism or expropriation. Unlike before, individuals have an added incentive outside of achieving the revolution: They have an easy method of obtaining a reward for their act of revolutionary activism. This increases the likelihood that, if someone were to organize a mass walk-out at work, co-workers would have added interest in disobeying the company’s wishes. Scabs are so often motivated by making money, rather than simply supporting the boss. So let us say to the scab, “join us instead, we’ll give you a hefty amount of bitcoin to do so.”

Of course, this does not have to only be “on the job” sabotage. We can also incentivize acts of sabotage and disobedience against the police. “5 BTCs to the man or woman who slashes all the cop car tires on Main street this Wednesday!” This adds a new and perhaps necessary motivation to commit acts which might not be already rewarding. Why not quit your day job and glue the sheriff’s office door closed? Hell, we could even bet on the boys in blue themselves to take a little bit of our money, if the price is right. We will be glad to give it, officer.

These ideas, while imbued with a crypto-anarchist attitude, are certainly not new to anarchist thought. During the height of the Abolitionist movement, Lysander Spooner encouraged individual acts of sabotage and violence against slaveholders by not only slaves and those committed to the abolitionist cause, but by those who were currently working as “freemen” for slave drivers. Spooner saw that these men cared little for their task and were much more concerned with financial reward. “So be it,” says Spooner. We want those ruthless bastards fighting for us.

From “A Plan For the Abolition of Slavery,”

“You stand ready to do all that vile and inhuman work, which must be done by somebody, but which the more decent Slaveholders themselves will not do. Yet we have heard one good report even of you. It is, that you have no such prejudices against color, nor against lib­erty, as that you would not as willingly earn money by helping a Slave to Canada, as by catching a fugitive and returning him to his master. If you are thus indifferent as to whom you serve, we advise you henceforth to serve the Slave, instead of their masters. Turn about, and help the robbed to rob their robbers. The former can afford to pay you better than the latter. Help them to get possession of the property which is rightfully their due, and they can afford to give you liberal commissions. Help them flog individual Slaveholders, and they can afford to pay you ten times as much as you ever received for flogging Slave. Help them to kidnap the Slaveholders, and they can afford to pay you more than you now get for catching fugitive Slaves. Be true to the Slaves, and we hope they will pay you well for your services. Be false to them, and we hope they will kill you.”

This is liberation for fun and profit. It does not require a moralistic banner be taken up by all against slavery, wage labor or other institutions originating with the State. The time for empty platitudes about the decency of human freedom is over. Slave drivers and the generally disinterested, your world is crumbling. The tool belt of the revolutionary is expanding. You do not have to end up penniless or in a prison cell in order to reclaim the life which is rightfully yours.  We implore you to join this cryptographic rebellion.

These online communities would function similarly to what Spooner called “vigilance committees,” where those injustices, which go unpunished by political means, are taken on directly by decentralized local forces instead. Spooner also recognized the dangers of such actions and, as stated above, such plans were hardly enforceable without great personal risk. That is no longer necessarily the case and it is time for a 21^st century implementation on this 19^th century revolutionary idea.

Of course, there are worries with this, as a previous C4SS op-ed on assassination markets has made clear. These sorts of markets are not restricted to revolutionary activity. People can use them for their own desires. There are worries that this could motivate unwarranted acts of aggression and violence against those who are not as deserving as cops, politicians or bosses. But, as is often the case with ideas like this, Pandora is out of the box. Nothing is stopping your next door neighbor from starting up an anonymous market dedicated to the lynching of any disfavored class. There is also nothing stopping that same person from simply shooting or lynching such individuals himself. So, with theoretical ideas like these, it is important to keep in mind that the necessity of education and motivating the right kind of culture is paramount.

With new tools of defense, almost always come new tools to oppress. Guns were a grand idea until we decided to give one institution with a monopolization on violence most of the weapons. So we must discourage any truly oppressive acts on these markets. We must make a society of those who despise political and economic authority, who are more than happy to set aside their day jobs and make money by tearing down the system one act of individual direct action at a time. The time to strike is now. There has never been a time more ripe than today. The libertarian community is at the forefront of this technology, pushing it forward, making evasion of law enforcement easier all the time, making it more profitable to engage in illegal and undesired activity. This is our opportunity.

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, Um mercado de sabotagens.

Brooks e Bolton que fiquem perdendo tempo aí agarrados em suas pérolas. Essa coisa terá longo alcance. Não é acidente tantos vazadores e hackers que apareceram com preeminência no noticiário nos anos recentes — como Chelsea Manning, Aaron Swartz, Jeremy Hammond e Edward Snowden — estarem na casa dos vinte. Também não é acidente que o público estadunidense esteja tão polarizado em termos de idade em suas atitudes em relação a Snowden. Entre as pessoas mais velhas, aquelas que veem Snowden como heroi são grandemente superadas em número por aquelas que o consideram traidor. No caso de pessoas com menos de 35 anos, porém, as proporções se invertem: 70 por cento das pessoas entre 18 a 34 anos acreditam que Snowden “fez boa coisa.”

O motivo é a geração mais jovem, na maioria, ter atingido a idade adulta com atitude fundamentalmente diferente, em relação à autoridade e às regras institucionais, da de seus pais — quanto mais da de seus avós. E cresceram com atitude extremamente diferente em relação a liberdade de informação e transparência.

Embora o contrato de “Capitalismo de Consenso” pós-guerra estivesse já começando a erodir quando os nascidos no Surto de Natalidade do pós-guerra atingiram a idade adulta, as pessoas da idade de Bolton e mais velhas do que ele atingiram a idade adulta no prolongado arrebol de uma cultura na qual a expectativa era a de que (para os brancos da classe média, pelo menos) se você fosse leal à instituição, ela cuidaria de você. Isso significava que quarenta anos de emprego na mesma empresa era a norma esperada para a maioria dos trabalhadores de escritório e braçais/industriais, podendo os trabalhadores braçais/industriais nutrir expectativa de aumentos de salário baseados em produtividade, ao lado de segurança no emprego. O assim chamado apoio Capacete de Segurança ao Vietnã e ao estado de segurança, em qualquer medida em que tenha sido real, refletia essa lealdade às instituições que haviam “cuidado de seus funcionários.”

Não é o que acontece com a presente geração. Esta atingiu a idade adulta num ambiente no qual já é esperado que os empregadores institucionais, governamentais ou corporativos, façam com ela o que der para fazer desde que consigam se safar depois de fazê-lo, e em seguida dispensá-la uma vez fartos. Recém-formados podem passar anos em estágios não pagos morando com os pais, e em seguida despender toda uma vida trabalhando por meio de agências de emprego temporário ou mediante contratos por projeto. Essa última modalidade foi a que Snowden adotou. Essas pessoas não são cínicas — apenas realistas. O salário e benefícios que elas obtêm das instituições que as veem como papel higiênico com penacho simplesmente não são o bastante para alugar — menos ainda para comprar — os 1600 centímetros cúbicos internos a seus crânios. Elas não nutrem nenhuma ilusão de que serão cuidadas. E se lealdade for o preço da lealdade, elas devem a seus empregadores necas de pitibiriba.

O percentual de pessoas com menos de 35 anos que acha que Snowden fez boa coisa é cerca do mesmo percentual de pessoas jovens que, a despeito de anos de propaganda “anti-songlifting” [contra o download ilegal de música] nas escolas e faculdades públicas, aceitam o file-sharing [compartilhamento de arquivos] e a liberdade de informação como parte normal da vida.

Não são pessoas que acreditam que “as regras” que governam as instituições são feitas para benefício de “todos nós,” ou que a informação é sigilosa por algum bom motivo. São pessoas que acreditam que aqueles no poder as explorarão sem pensar duas vezes, e que o sigilo existe principalmente para esconder as sujeiras que aqueles em posição de autoridade estão fazendo.

Acontece que o sistema inteiro depende da presente geração para seu trabalho de base. O modelo pós-industrial, informacional do capitalismo corporativo depende fortemente do que McKenzie Wark chamou de “Classe Hacker.” Até em instituições autoritárias como a Agência de Segurança Nacional – NSA as baias estão eivadas do tipo de gente que, como Snowden, colocaria adesivos da Fundação da Fronteira Eletrônica em seus laptops. A Classe Hacker é governada, em grande parte, por seu próprio conjunto de mores, correspondentes, em grande parte, ao “Etos Hacker” de Pekka Himmanen. Que inclui forte desejo de autonomia, obscurecimento das linhas entre trabalho e divertimento, crença em que um “bom hack” é sua própria recompensa, e forte ressentimento em relação a interferência da parte de chefes incompetentes.

Portanto, podemos esperar mais vazamentos em escala Manning e Snowden nos anos por vir, e muito mais coleta de informação mediante uso da internet da escala de HB Gary e Stratfor. O sistema está criando seus próprios coveiros.

Dois, Três, Muitos Snowdens!

Artigo original afixado por Kevin Carson em 24 de setembro de 2013.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

Brooks and Bolton may as well hold onto their pearls. It’s gonna be a long ride. It’s no accident that so many of the leakers and hackers figuring prominently in the news in recent years — like Chelsea Manning, Aaron Swartz, Jeremy Hammond and Edward Snowden — have been twenty-somethings. It’s also no accident that the American public is so polarized by age in its attitudes toward Snowden. Among older folks, those who regard Snowden as a hero are heavily outnumbered by those who consider him a traitor. But for those under 35, the proportions are reversed: 70 percent of those 18-34 believe Snowden “did a good thing.”

The reason is that the younger generation, for the most part, has grown up with a fundamentally different attitude toward institutional authority and rules than their parents — let alone their grandparents. And they’ve grown up with an extremely different attitude toward information freedom and transparency.

Although the postwar “Consensus Capitalism” compact was already starting to erode when the Boomers came of age, those Bolton’s age and older still grew up in the lingering afterglow of a culture in which it was expected that (for middle class whites, anyway) if you were loyal to the institution it would take care of you. That meant forty years’ employment by one company was the expected norm for most white and blue collar workers, and blue collar workers could expect productivity-based wage increases along with their job security. The so-called Hard Hat support for Vietnam and the security state, to whatever extent it was real, reflected this loyalty to the institutions that had “taken care of them.”

Not so for this generation. They’ve grown up in an environment in which it’s just expected that institutional employers, whether government or corporate, will do to them whatever they can get away with, then spit them out when they’re done. New graduates may spend years in unpaid internships living with their parents, then move on to a lifetime of working through temp agencies or on stringer contracts. That latter is what Snowden did. These people aren’t cynical — just realistic. The pay and benefits they get from institutions that view them as glorified toilet paper just aren’t enough to rent — let alone buy — the 1600 cubic centimeters inside their skulls. They aren’t under any illusions they’ll be taken care of. And if loyalty is the price of loyalty, they owe their employers bubkes.

The percentage of under-35s who think Snowden did a good thing is about the same percentage of young people who, despite years of “anti-songlifting” propaganda in the public schools and colleges, accept file-sharing and information freedom as a fact of life.

These are not people who believe “the rules” governing institutions are made for the benefit of “all of us,” or that information is secret for a good reason. These are people who believe those in charge will screw them over without thinking twice, and that secrecy exists mainly to hide the dirty stuff those in authority are up to.

But the entire system depends on this generation for its grunt work. The post-industrial, informational model of corporate capitalism depends heavily on what McKenzie Wark called the “Hacker Class.” Even in authoritarian institutions like the NSA, the cubicles are riddled with the kind of people who, like Snowden, would have Electronic Frontier Foundation stickers on their laptops. The Hacker Class is governed largely by its own set of mores, largely corresponding to Pekka Himmanen’s “Hacker Ethos.” They include an increased desire for autonomy, a blurring of the lines between work and play, a belief that a “good hack” is its own reward, and a strong resentment of interference by pointy-haired bosses.

So we can expect a lot more leaks on the Manning and Snowden scale in years to come, and a lot more doxings on the scale of HB Gary and Stratfor. The system is creating its own gravediggers.

Two, Three, Many Snowdens!

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, Dois, Três, Muitos Snowdens!

To be clear, my letter was dealing largely with separate issues from State Senator Simpson’s. As such, I feel I should respond directly to his specific claims and questions.

Simpson asks: “did Bradley Manning demonstrate any attribute we would normally associate with heroism?”

Chelsea Manning demonstrated multiple attributes we would normally associate with heroism. First, she demonstrated courage and willingness to face great personal risk. In blowing the whistle on the U.S. government’s crimes, she risked death (as seen in the government charging her with a capital offense), decades of imprisonment, torture (which she did receive), and abuse from a prison system famously hostile to transgender individuals like her.

Second, she demonstrated moral principle. She expressed a commitment to truth and desire for reform as her motivations for leaking these documents. As she wrote in her chats with Adrian Lamo:

“If you had free reign over classified networks… and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?”

“God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms… I want people to see the truth… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

Her courageous and principled whistleblowing, for which she has been tortured and caged, did lead to substantial discussions, debates, and reforms. Her leaks provided evidence of corruption in the Tunisian government that helped spark the Arab Spring. Manning’s disclosures also shed light on what McClatchy Newspapers called “evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence.” The outrage caused by exposure of this brutal war crime helped end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/

Simpson claims “Manning didn’t save anyone’s life.” This is simply false. By playing a pivotal role in ending the US military’s occupation of Iraq, Chelsea Manning prevented the deaths of both Iraqis and American troops that would inevitably have come from continued occupation.

Simpson also asserts that Manning’s disclosures “jeopardize the lives of thousands of our military personnel.” But prosecutors were unable to demonstrate that even a single person was harmed as a result of Manning’s disclosures. What does State Senator Simpson know that they do not? http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/08/01/the-government-cant-prove-bradley-manning-hurt-anyone-but-joe-klein-knows/

It appears that State Senator Simpson is unable to recognize courage, principle, and personal risk when they are staring him in the face. It also appears that he is interested in commenting on Manning’s actions without devoting any serious study to the matter. Perhaps voters should keep this in mind when considering whether he is informed enough to hold political power over them.

Sincerely,
Nathan Goodman

The interesting thing about the federal prosecutions of Aaron Swartz and Chelsea Manning is that the vindictive approach to piling up charges and seeking maximum sentences were calculated attempts to send a message to anyone else contemplating sabotage against the information control regime. But those attempts have done more to inspire sympathy among the uncommitted and galvanize the information freedom movement than to terrify would-be leakers. The only effect the state’s terror tactics against Swartz and Manning had on Edward Snowden was to spur him to get out of the U.S. government’s reach and seek overseas protection, and to make sure his data was dispersed to multiple secure locations, before showing his hand.

Among the general public, the prominence of the NSA and Snowden in the media has sparked increased interest in encryption. Leak websites are putting increased effort into adopting more distributed p2p architectures and better anonymization, making leaking anonymously from within the system increasingly safe. And we’re probably seeing the beginning of a mass wave of cloud-related businesses migrating to servers outside of U.S. jurisdiction.

Thanks to an endless series of leaks about the U.S. spying on its supposedly allied countries and international agencies like the IAEA and UN Secretary General’s office, the affection of erstwhile allies is cooling considerably toward the U.S. and some regional trade deals are in jeopardy. The U.S. expended enormous political capital to have Evo Morales’s plane forced down in Europe — all for nothing — and in the process lost whatever South American public affection not already permanently alienated by Yanqui arrogance.

Most recently, public outrage in the UK over harassment of Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, and the destruction of the Guardian‘s hard drives, in the ongoing NSA saga, probably had a lot to do with Parliament’s unprecedented decision not to carry water for an American attack on Syria. And security analyst Bruce Schneier believes (“Detaining David Miranda,” Schneier on Security, August 27) the public backlash in Britain over Miranda’s detention will make that government a lot more hesitant to do Washington’s bidding in the future.

In the meantime,the U.S. intelligence community’s morale is devastated. NSA campus recruiters have already been blindsided by hostile student questioning that fell short only of driving the recruiters away with actual pitchforks and torches. And now, with the continuing negative exposure in the press, NSA employees around the water cooler reportedly (“If NSA Workers Feel Unloved, Why Don’t They Quit?” Reason, August 26) sound like a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and the Maytag Repairman.

This public cynicism and internal demoralization are further heightened by the death of a thousand cuts Glenn Greenwald and Snowden have inflicted on the NSA and Obama administration. Greenwald’s strategy seems to be to wait until Obama or Alexander make another claim in defense of the NSA, then release another damning document proving it to be a lie.

This, boys and girls, is what we call a tipping point: Everything the state does to suppress leakers and whistleblowers further undermines its moral authority with the public and its own internal morale, leads to disaffection and defection by allies and inspires leaking and whistleblowing on an even bigger scale.

Manning está sendo punido por expor crimes do governo, mais famosamente soldados dos Estados Unidos atingindo civis inocentes, inclusive dois jornalistas da Reuters, no vídeo Assassínio Colateral. As revelações de Manning também lançaram luz sobre o que os Jornais McClatchy chamaram de “evidência de que soldados dos Estados Unidos executaram pelo menos 10 civis iraquianos, inclusive mulher na casa dos 70 anos e criança de 5 anos, e em seguida requisitaram ataque aéreo para destruir a evidência.” A indignação causada pela revelação desse brutal crime de guerraajudou a encerrar a ocupação do Iraque pelos Estados Unidos.

Depois de Manning ter exposto esses e incontáveis outros crimes do governo, os perpetradores deveriam ter sido chamados a responder por seus atos. Não o foram. Em vez disso, o estado lançou-se a uma série de crimes contra o Soldado Manning.

Talvez o mais abominável desses crimes seja a tortura. O denunciante acusado foi mantido em confinamento solitário durante meses a fio antes do julgamento. O relator especial das Nações Unidas para tortura Juan Mendez conduziu investigação de 14 meses relativa a essa detenção abusiva. Mendez explicou suas conclusões ao the Guardian como segue:

Concluo que os 11 meses em condições de confinamento solitário (independentemente do nome dado a esse regime pelas autoridades prisionais) constitui no mínimo tratamento cruel, desumano e degradante que viola o artigo 16 da convenção contra tortura. Se os efeitos em termos de dor e sofrimento infligidos a Manning fossem mais severos, poderiam constituir tortura.

Mendez não está só em considerar confinamento solitário de longo prazo como tortura. Por exemplo, John McCain escreveu que a solitária “esmaga o espírito da pessoa e debilita sua resistência mais eficazmente do que qualquer outra forma de tratamento.”

Por que, contudo, foi Manning torturado durante meses a fio antes do julgamento? Alguns observadores, tais como o advogado de direitos humanos Michael Ratner, especulam que a instituição militar torturou Manning a fim de pressionar o denunciante a testemunhar contra o Wikileaks e Julian Assange. Torturar um denunciante a fim de implicar uma organização jornalística é desprezível.

Há porém outro motivo provável por trás da tortura: a identidade de gênero de Manning. De acordo com recente artigo em Jacobin:

Manning foi torturado em parte por ter assinado algumas cartas a partir do calabouço como  “Breanna Elizabeth.” O Sargento Master do Corpo de Marines Craig Blenis defendeu sua própria crueldade numa audiência pré-julgamento em dezembro. Coombs perguntou por que o marine achava que a disforia de gênero de Manning deveria ser levada em conta para efeito da condição de “prevenção de danos corporais.”Blenis respondeu que porque “isso não é normal, senhor.”

Assim, a tortura do Pfc. Manning não foi apenas crime, e sim crime de ódio. Isso é o que o estado pensa de pessoas transgenéricas, que está certo torturá-las porque elas “não são normais.”

Esse tipo de tortura acontece em clausuras nos Estados Unidos. As pessoas transgenéricas sãodesproporcionalmente encarceradas neste país. Ao serem enclausuradas, são amiúde acomodadas com base em seu sexo atribuído no nascimento, não em sua identidade de gênero. Essa acomodação, particulamente de mulheres trans em prisões de homens, sujeita-as a assédio, intolerância, abuso, e estupro. Em reação a esses riscos, elas são amiúde colocadas em solitária para sua própria “proteção.” O governo dos Estados Unidos tortura prisioneiros transgenéricos por eles serem o tipo de gente que são, e o Pfc. Manning é uma das vítimas desse crime institucionalizado de ódio.

E pelos próximos 35 anos o estado enclausurará o Pfc. Manning e provavelmente continuará a infligir tortura e abuso ao denunciante. Enquanto isso, os criminosos de guerra e torturadores que esse herói expôs continuarão impunes. Isso é o que faz o sistema de “justiça” do estado. Usa força brutal contra aqueles que expõem criminosos poderosos, isentando assim tais criminosos de responderem por seus atos.

Artigo original afixado por Nathan Goodman em 21 de agosto de 2013.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

Inicialmente concordei com esses métodos e optei por oferecer-me para ajudar a defender meu país. Só depois de encontrar-me no Iraque e ler relatórios militares secretos diariamente comecei a questionar a moralidade do que estávamos fazendo. Foi então que entendi que (em) nossos esforços para contrapor-nos ao risco colocado diante de nós pelo inimigo havíamos esquecido nossa humanidade. Conscientemente elegemos desvalorizar a vida humana tanto no Iraque quanto no Afeganistão. Ao combatermos aqueles que víamos como sendo o inimigo, por vezes matamos civis inocentes. Sempre que matamos civis inocentes, em vez de aceitarmos responsabilidade por nossa conduta, optamos por esconder-nos atrás do véu da segurança nacional e das informações secretas a fim de evadir-nos de qualquer prestação pública de contas.

Em nosso zelo em matar o inimigo, debatemos internamente a definição de tortura. Mantivemos pessoas presas em Guantanamo por anos sem o processo devido. Inexplicavelmente fizemos vista grossa para tortura e execuções praticadas pelo governo iraquiano. E engolimos incontáveis outros atos em nome de nossa guerra ao terror.

O patriotismo é amiúde o grito exaltado quando atos moralmente questionáveis são defendidos pelos que estão no poder. Quando esses gritos de patriotismo sufocam qualquer dissidência logicamente alicerçada, é usualmente ao soldado estadunidense que é dada ordem de levar a efeito alguma missão mal concebida.

Nossa nação já teve momentos similares tenebrosos para as virtudes da democracia — a Trilha das Lágrimas, a decisão Dred Scott, o McCarthyismo, e os campos de internação de estadunidenses de origem japonesa — para mencionar uns poucos. Estou confiante em que muitas das ações desde o 11/9 serão um dia vistas de modo semelhante.

Como disse uma vez o falecido Howard Zinn, “Não há bandeira grande o bastante para cobrir a vergonha de matar pessoas inocentes.”

Entendo que minhas ações violaram a lei; sinto muito se minhas ações magoaram alguém ou causaram dano aos Estados Unidos. Nunca foi minha intenção ferir ninguém. Só quis ajudar pessoas. Quando optei por revelar informações secretas, fi-lo por amor a meu país e sentimento de dever em relação a outras pessoas.

Se você denegar minha solicitação de perdão, cumprirei minha pena sabendo que por vezes temos de pagar alto preço para viver numa sociedade livre. Pagarei de bom grado esse preço se isso significar que poderíamos ter um país verdadeiramente concebido em liberdade e dedicado à proposição de que todas as mulheres e homens são criados iguais.”

Artigo original afixado por Chelsea Manning em 24 de agosto de 2013.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized that (in) our efforts to meet the risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.

In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.

Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is usually the American soldier that is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy — the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, and the Japanese-American internment camps — to mention a few. I am confident that many of the actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, “There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

I understand that my actions violated the law; I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.

If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.”

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, Carta de Chelsea Manning Ao Presidente Obama Solicitando Perdão.

Is this really a nation of laws, though? There’s an old legal principle, “nemo iudex in causa sua,” which translated into English means “no one should be the judge of their own cause.” But in fact all the laws theoretically limiting the state’s power are interpreted by — wait for it — officials of the state.

The state is, in a very real sense, judge in its own cause. Consider what the security community’s classification system amounts to, stripped of its phony veneer of “public safety” and disinteredness. The U.S. government, to further the interests that control it, commits atrocities and crimes against the peoples of the world. It then decides for itself how much of its criminal activities it will allow its own domestic population — supposedly its sovereign masters to whom it is accountable — to know about. If one of its functionaries possesses the career-killing handicap of a conscience and feels morally bound to let the people know what kinds of criminal stuff “their” government is really doing, the same government that’s doing all these awful things also sets the criminal penalties for clueing in the American people to what it’s doing.

The commission of the actual military, intelligence and diplomatic crimes themselves, the classification of documents that evidence those crimes, and the setting of civil and criminal penalties for revealing wickedness in high places — all these things are done by officials of the same government.

During the administration of Richard Nixon, who was less vindictive toward whistleblowers than our current President, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, a collection of classified documents showing how the United States had inexorably increased its involvement in Indochina ever since the French withdrawal, lying to the American people about the situation the whole time. That secret decision-making process, uncovered by Ellsberg after the fact, cost over 50,000 American and millions of Vietnamese lives, and turned most of south Indochina into a dioxin-soaked hell.

In 1953 the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s elected government — an act which eventually led to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and thirty subsequent years of war and tension in the Gulf. It led indirectly to a bloody war between Iran and Iraq in which millions died, creating a regional political climate that at times threatened superpower war. It was only in the past month — sixty years after the fact — the CIA officially admitted it had written a check to be cashed with the a**es of the American people.

In the late ’70s, under Zbigniew Brzezinski’s foreign policy leadership, the U.S. began backing Islamic fundamentalist rebels against the Soviet-friendly government of Afghanistan, resulting in a Soviet-backed coup and subsequent invasion reminiscent of what the U.S. engineered in South Vietnam in 1963-1965. The explicit goal of Brzezinski’s move in the “Great Game” was to get the USSR bogged down in its own sucking chest wound of a counter-insurgency war, with the possible side-benefit of destabilizing control in the largely Muslim southern republics of the Soviet Union. Other unintended consequences of this brilliant chess move included the rise of al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks. Even after 9/11, though, Brzezinski still said it was worth it. Funny thing is — I never heard of the American people getting a vote on it.

The farce is made even more absurd by the fact that high-ranking officials like Obama do, in fact, break the law whenever they feel like it — with impunity. At the same press conference where he gave the quote above, Obama said: “… I have to abide by certain rules of classified information. If I were to release material I weren’t allowed to, I’d be breaking the law.” But Obama does that all the time. The movie “Zero Dark Thirty” is chock full of classified material leaked with the full complicity of the Obama administration. Last I heard, nobody was in prison, or holed up in an embassy, or had their plane forced down, pursuant to an effort to track down the leakers. Government illegally leaks classified information all the time, to smear its enemies or promote its propaganda line, and heads don’t roll for it. Because, you know, government.

That’s the way it works. The government commits crimes, classifies all the evidence of its criminal activity, and punishes anyone with the audacity to tell you about it. The government is judge of its own cause, every step of the way. This is not a government of laws. The state is the opposite of law.

Manning is being punished for exposing government crimes, most famously U.S. troops shooting innocent civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in the Collateral Murder video. Manning’s disclosures also shed light on what McClatchy Newspapers called “evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence.” The outrage caused by exposure of this brutal war crime helped end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

After Manning exposed these and countless other government crimes, the perpetrators should have been held accountable. They were not. Instead, the state engaged in a series of crimes against Private Manning.

Perhaps the most heinous of these crimes is torture. The accused whistleblower was held in solitary confinement for months on end before the trial. UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez conducted a 14-month investigation into this abusive detention. Mendez explained his findings to the Guardian as follows:

I conclude that the 11 months under conditions of solitary confinement (regardless of the name given to his regime by the prison authorities) constitutes at a minimum cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of article 16 of the convention against torture. If the effects in regards to pain and suffering inflicted on Manning were more severe, they could constitute torture.

Mendez is not alone in considering long term solitary confinement torture. For example, John McCain has written that solitary “crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.”

So why was Manning tortured for months on end before trial? Some observers, such as civil rights attorney Michael Ratner, speculate that the military tortured Manning in order to pressure the whistleblower to testify against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Torturing a whistleblower in order to implicate a journalistic organization is despicable.

But there’s another likely motive behind the torture: Manning’s gender identity. According to a recent article in Jacobin:

Manning was tortured in part because he signed a few letters from the brig as “Breanna Elizabeth.” Marine Corps Master Sgt. Craig Blenis defended his cruelty in a December pre-trial hearing. Coombs asked why the marine thought Manning’s gender dysphoria should factor into his “prevention of Injury” status. Blenis answered because “that’s not normal, sir.”

So the torture of Pfc. Manning was not just a crime, but a hate crime. This is what the state thinks of transgender people, that it is okay to torture them because they are “not normal.”

This kind of torture happens in cages across the United States. Transgender people are disproportionately incarcerated in this country. When they are caged, they are often housed based on their birth assigned sex, not their gender identity. This placement, particularly of trans women in men’s prisons, subjects them to harassment, bigotry, abuse, and rape. In response to these risks, they are often placed in solitary for their “protection.”  The United States government tortures transgender inmates for who they are, and Pfc. Manning is one victim of this institutionalized hate crime.

And for the next 35 years the state will cage Pfc. Manning and likely continue to inflict torture and abuse on the whistleblower. Meanwhile, the war criminals and torturers this hero exposed will go unpunished. This is what the state’s “justice” system does. It uses brutal force against those who expose powerful criminals, thus insulating said criminals from accountability.

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, O Estado, Não Manning, é o Criminoso.