This injustice primarily impacts the poor. The key ways to being released from pretrial detention are hiring an attorney, paying bail, or bribing officials. Naturally, the poor have the least access to these options. There are also racist impacts from pretrial detention. As Schoenteich notes, “Ethnic minorities are also disproportionately represented in pretrial detainee populations around the world — Dalits in India, African Americans in the United States, Aboriginal people in Australia.” The report also notes that individuals with mental illnesses and cognitive disabilities are more likely to be detained awaiting trial.

The Open Society report examines the problem globally. But when I think about pretrial detention, two specific cases come to mind: Chelsea Manning and Matthew Stewart.

Chelsea Manning is the heroic whistleblower who released classified evidence of war crimes and other US government misconduct to the journalistic organization WikiLeaks. Manning’s disclosures 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. Manning’s disclosures revealed that Hillary Clinton ordered diplomats to spy on and commit identity theft against UN officials. Her disclosures also uncovered evidence related to child sexual abuse by US military contractors in Afghanistan. 

Were any of the criminals Manning exposed held accountable? Of course not. Instead, Chelsea Manning was held in pretrial detention for years before being convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison, simply for releasing information. She was held in solitary confinement, a cruel form of psychological torture, throughout her detention. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez investigated the conditions under which Manning was held and concluded “that the 11 months under conditions of solitary confinement… 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.” Moreover, there is some evidence that the torture was a bigoted response to Manning’s gender identity and expression. As Joanne McNeil reported in Jacobin,

Manning was tortured in part because he [sic] 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.”

In a sense, the pretrial torture of Chelsea Manning was not just a crime, it was a hate crime.

Matthew Stewart did not survive pretrial detention long enough to be convicted or acquitted. Late at night on January 4th, 2012, armed men broke into his home with guns blazing. Matthew, a startled gun owner and Iraq war veteran, fired back on the home invaders, killing one and wounding several others. But because they were police officers carrying out a drug raid, Matthew was not treated as a homeowner engaged in legitimate self-defense. Instead, he was locked up in the Weber County Jail and charged with murder. He was subjected to social isolation and other abuses for a year and a half before he eventually committed suicide. He was found in his cell hanging from a bedsheet. After his death, the degradation still didn’t end. Police officers trespassed in his home again even after he was dead and the state’s case against him was closed. Officer Jason Vanderwarf harassed Matthew’s grieving family members on Facebook, writing “now you all can feel our pain.” Vanderwarf was one of the initial aggressors, having lied on the initial search warrant and participated in the home invasion.

Pretrial detention is an appalling human rights abuse. Obviously, it undermines the right to due process and the presumption of innocence. It can be used to torture and brutalize detainees, especially political prisoners who have offended state functionaries, as Matthew Stewart and Chelsea Manning did. And pretrial detention is most often used to cage and abuse the most vulnerable in our society: the poor, ethnic minorities, and people with psychiatric and cognitive disabilities. Let’s end this injustice.

In other words, there is always a risk that something will offend someone somewhere. If you applied this principle consistently, you’d release barely anything – if at all. Libertarian principle also informs us that responsibility for any immoral acts committed in response to the release would belong to the people who did them. It wouldn’t be the fault of the people doing the releasing.

Of course, the discussion above presumes that people actually would commit immoral acts in response to the release of the report. As opposed to just hating the American government. The anarchist is rightfully concerned with the former rather than the latter. What the governing class and national security establishment is really concerned about is the latter. They don’t want distrust by people around the world to interfere with their projection of power.

Libertarian principle is about the opposite. It would be a good thing, if the release of the report were to impede the use of coercive American power around the globe. The lives saved would be incaluable as the military power of the American government were no longer trusted to do right. That’s one of the best anarchist arguments for the release of the report. Not to mention the fact that it will make available good information for future war crimes trials.

To make this a reality, Wikileaks and similar organizations should be encouraged to contact whistleblowers within the establishment. If the government won’t release it on its own accord, another Chelsea Manning might be willing to. They don’t even need to be an anarchist, but, it would still be a very anarchistic act on their part. The kind of act that can radicalize people and push them towards anarchism.

Anarchists should thus contact Wikileaks and encourage them to follow through on this suggestion. The result could be very favorable to liberty. Freedom cannot survive the use of torture. All the more reason to get started on this project.

Through their definition of who gets to be a journalist, they’re not. They are making sure that the outlets that crave the most access – the major networks, public radio, major newspapers – are the only ones covered; everyone else can suck eggs – especially Wikileaks, or organizations like it.

Stone is fine with this, as the above-quoted section of his article indicates. He’s okay with “compromise.” I’m not.

That’s why, he says, Congress should pass the Free Flow of Information Act, warts and all. As is. Right now.

Wait. What?

From Stone’s article (4/15/14):

[T]he law is full of hard choices, and what matters here is not that every tomdickandharry self-professed “journalist” gets to assert the privilege, but that sources can reasonably find journalists who can invoke the privilege when they want anonymity. It is no doubt true that, no matter how one draws the line, some folks will be unhappy. But as long as the statutory definition of “journalist” is reasonable, and is not couched in such a way to exclude journalists because of their particular ideological slant, this is not a serious obstacle. Indeed, if 49 states have managed to make this work, so can the federal government.

Sorry, no. The constitutionalist devil on my left shoulder can’t abide the first amendment-eviscerating clauses added by Dianne Feinstein in the current version of the act; the anarchist on my right shoulder obviously wants to see the act lit on fire, with all digital copies wiped as a precaution. As I wrote in my April 1 op-ed, more than just bloggers would be adversely affected by the shield law’s exclusions:

But what if the reporter in question doesn’t work for a newspaper, television station, radio station or wire service? What if they got a job at Wikileaks?

“The term ‘covered journalist’ does not include any person or entity whose principal function, as demonstrated by the totality of such person or entity’s work, is to publish primary source documents that have been disclosed to such person or entity without authorization.”

So that means that independent investigative journalists who run their own sites and leak sites like Wikileaks and Cryptome aren’t covered. See also: Targets of state-level “Ag-Gag” laws, which criminalize the filming of factory farm conditions and other agricultural atrocities, and people who film the police.

In fact, the Free Flow of Information Act spends more time detailing what it will not cover than describing who it will protect.

Now, granted, Stone was writing in response to arguments by an ex-Romney staffer, Gabriel Schoenfeld, whose article, “Time for a Shield Law?” was published in the spring 2014 issue of National Affairs. From the quotey bits in Stone’s piece (not to mention an admittedly merely-cursory glance at the source), I don’t know if I could defend the premises of Schoenfeld’s article either. Conservative statism is just as bad as, if not worse than, liberal statism.

But Stone’s piece is still statist apologetics, and needs to be called out as such. So let’s go through the article.

After defining what journalist-source privilege is, and comparing it to the confidentiality agreements afforded doctors or lawyers, he describes a scenario where a congressional aide overhears a bribe taking place. This aide turns to a journalist, who assures them that their identity will not get out: “Without the privilege, the story would never have seen the light of day, but with the privilege the story gets out and the source remains anonymous.”

However, if the congressperson caught taking the bribe is prosecuted in federal court, the journalist is compelled to reveal their source, who is then compelled to testify. “Knowing this, the source in many instances will tell no one about what she overheard, and there will therefore be no investigation or prosecution for the bribe,” Stone writes.

This is definitely not good, but so far, this is simply an argument for a shield law, not the current shield bill being debated. In fact, this scenario presents the main stumbling block: why in the world is Congress going to pass a law that makes it easier for someone to incriminate them and get away scot-free?

Through their definition of who gets to be a journalist, they’re not. They are making sure that the outlets that crave the most access – the major networks, public radio, major newspapers – are the only ones covered; everyone else can suck eggs – especially Wikileaks, or organizations like it.

Stone is fine with this, as the above-quoted section of his article indicates. He’s okay with “compromise.” I’m not.

1) The Canadian Supreme Court’s striking down of the anti-prostitution laws. This was an important step in the direction of sex worker liberation. Not the only step that needs to be taken, but a meaingful one nonetheless.

2) Chelsea Manning’s continued heroic stand against the warfare state. It landed her in jail, but she has many supporters on the outside. Those of us who oppose American warfare statism have much to thank her for.

3) Radley Balko’s book on police militarization earns a spot in this piece, because those police powers are often used against the marginalized and oppressed. The War on Drugs is a notable example, because it predominantly targets African-Americans.

4) Edward Snowden’s revelations about the surveillance state. Glenn Greenwald has been instrumental in helping us find out about the spyng of the NSA. He deserves accolades for this principled behavior. It goes to show that he is one of the more reasonable left-liberals or centre-leftists out there.

William Pfaff discusses how history will remember Obama

Elizabeth Goiten discusses “good guys” and “bad guys” in the War on Terror.

Bruce A. Dixon discusses how Obama won a court case to keep sentencing disparities intact.

Chris Floyd discusses the murderous character of the American system.

Chris Floyd discusses the NSA spying scandal.

Scott Anderson reviews America’s Great Game.

Chris Floyd discusses the chemical weapons attack in Syria.

Robert Fatina discusses the status of forces agreement with Afghanistan.

Jacob Hornberger argues for a lifting of the Cuban embargo.

Nitin Rao discusses the criminalization of gay sex in India.

Dmitry Minin discusses the Jihadi warriors of Syria.

Arthur Silber discusses problems with Glenn Greenwald on whistleblowing.

Corey Robin defends campus activism and BDS.

Logan Yershov discusses the problems with assassination markets.

Arthur Silber discusses leaking.

Arthur Silber discusses the doctrine of exceptionalism.

Trevor Huitner discusses school shootings and thought crimes.

Christy Thornton discusses NYU grad student unionization.

Patrick Cockburn discusses the bankruptcy of the West’s Syrian policy.

Ann Jones discusses ROTC and child soldiers.

Hayes Brown discusses 5 surprising places that the U.S. military operates.

David Swanson discusses fighting for peace.

Tony Newman discusses the top ten Drug War stories of 2013.

Joshua Holland discusses the massive U.S. prison population.

Sheldon Richman asks whether Obama really wants an agreement with Iran or not.

Dr. Cesar Chelala discusses stopping Iran’s human rights abuses.

Patrick Cockburn discusses the humanitarian emergency in Syria.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses this year’s bad cops.

John Watson reviews My System and Blockade. Both of which are by the famous Russian player, Aron Nimzowitsch.

Chess Cafe offers its annual “year in review” for 2013.

In other words, if the government tells me I shouldn’t publish something, who am I as a journalist to disobey? Put that on the tombstone of western establishment journalism. It perfectly encapsulates the death spiral of large journalistic outlets.

Four months ago, when the NSA-surveillance stories had just begun to be published, I wrote a piece setting forth my strenuous objections to the methodology employed by Greenwald (and by the other journalists involved): “Fed Up with All the Bullshit.” At the outset of my article, I noted Greenwald’s explanation for that methodology:

“We’re not engaged in a mindless, indiscriminate document dump, and our source didn’t want us to be,” said Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian writer, in an email to BuzzFeed Saturday. “We’re engaged in the standard journalistic assessment of whether the public value to publication outweighs any harms.” …

“We’re applying the standard judgment test that journalists apply every day: first, is it newsworthy and relevant, ie, is there public interest in knowing this?” Greenwald told BuzzFeed. “If so: is there genuine harm that comes from publication? And if there is harm, does the public value outweigh/justify the harm?”

In “Fed Up with All the Bullshit” and in an earlier post I “discussed what ought to be a disturbing similarity between the justifications for concealment employed by Snowden’s chosen journalists and the State’s justifications for keeping massive amounts of information from the public. In both cases, the ‘authorities’ rely on factors and standards that are never specifically defined, on the basis of which they engage in some kind of unexplained ‘weighing’ process, all to decide whether to reveal or conceal the information in question.”

What has transpired in the four months since I wrote that compels the following conclusion: Greenwald, together with the other journalists to whom he has granted access to the Snowden documents and who abide by his ground rules, is engaged in precisely the same exercise of power that the State employs. Yet Greenwald continues to vehemently condemn the State’s exercise of such power, just as he condemns those who obey the State’s edicts, while he and his enthusiastic fans view his identical exercise of power in glowing terms, offering endless praise for the “bravery,” “courage” and “independence” demonstrated by those who bring us these carefully selected, sanitized, edited, and redacted tidbits from the documentation of the State’s actions and crimes.

It thus appears that what is alarming, and even heinous, when committed by the State mysteriously becomes imbued with profound nobility of spirit and boundless courage when committed by self-selected individuals. The modes of behavior in both cases are identical; the sole difference lies in the identities of the actors involved. I could point to historical examples of “revolutionaries” who prove to be far bloodier and more destructive than the “authorities” they replace once the revolutionaries themselves accede to power. That is far from a minor point, and it underscores the great danger of endorsing the exercise of power if only it is utilized by those of whom one “approves.” That, in turn, highlights the nature of my objection, which is to the exercise of power itself in this manner. Or, as I put it in the earlier post: “Bullshit, all of it. These are the dishonest, insulting arguments of power used to justify itself. To hell with it.”

Some questioning of Greenwald & Co.’s methods is now being offered, but not nearly enough. The endless plaudits continually offered to Greenwald & Co. serve to emphasize a point I’ve argued for years, although we hardly needed further evidence for the proposition: most people do not object to power itself. Most people are enormously comfortable with power, and they are more than happy to obey the dictates of those in positions of authority. Their only requirement is that power be exercised by those they approve and view favorably. It should not be necessary to state explicitly a logically compelled further point. But, since the minds of so many “dissenters” and “radicals” seem to be on extended vacation, it is advisable to set it out: You cannot successfully challenge an enemy by adopting his methods. When you adopt the enemy’s methods, you no longer challenge him: you become him. (This is a variant of a principle I identified long ago: “When you argue within the framework and using the terms selected by your opponent, you will always lose in the end. Even if you make a stronger case about one particular issue, your opponent still wins the larger battle — because you have permitted the underlying assumptions and the general perspective to remain unchallenged.”)

In Greenwald’s case, the horrifying ironies parade before us in endless procession. For years, Greenwald has furiously railed against authoritarians and their followers, and against the unchallenged exercise of power. Yet in the last month or so, whenever Greenwald himself is seriously challenged — and when he deigns to reply — he exhibits all the traits of those he has mercilessly condemned. As I wrote to a friend just yesterday: “I was never certain what [Greenwald] genuinely believed, as distinct from what he said he believed for marketing purposes. Since he himself is now openly the overbearing, pretentious, condescending, bullying, authoritarian shithead he always condemned, it rather puts his entire public persona in question.”

There’s some plain speaking for you. I offer it in large part because I’m sick to death of the fawning, unquestioning adulation being offered in place of analysis. I also offer it because it’s true. Is anyone capable of thinking about the NSA stories and the way in which they are being offered in a serious, critical manner?

Tarzie is: see here, here and here, and follow the links for much more. As further evidence for my harsh judgment, I also direct you to several Greenwald tweets. I’m not on Twitter myself and have no plans to be. But I occasionally follow a few discussions that I find of interest. Here’s one Greenwald tweet in response to questioning: “Which specific documents should be released that haven’t been? Are there any?” If you read the subsequent tweets (at the same link), you’ll read this from Greenwald: “So if you can’t even say that there’s been a single doc we improperly withheld, what’s your criticism?” This is idiotically nonsensical. Moreover, Greenwald himself has to know it’s idiotically nonsensical. How on earth can an outsider identify “specific documents” that “should be released,” when no outsider has any idea what Snowden turned over? Greenwald has repeatedly made clear what he thinks of this kind of argument when it is offered by others.For example: “You can’t prove that Iraq doesn’t have WMD, so … WAR!!!” Or: “You can’t prove that Iran won’t have nuclear weapons at some point and/or be a threat to the U.S. for some unspecified reason, so … WAR!!!” Greenwald is the one with unfettered access to the documents, and he’s the one who will not explain his method for releasing them (or, for the most part, not releasing them) except in the vaguest, ultimately meaningless terms. But somehow it is the questioner’s fault for being unable to identify what is inherently impossible for him to identify.

Or try this tweet: “There are some people for whom a sense of failure is a vital part of their worldview & need it.” According to Greenwald, if we fail to acknowledge and offer appropriate gratitude for his changing the world, it’s because of a character or psychological failure on our part. He resorts to this tactic with distressing regularity; for his efforts, Tarzie was rewarded with a veritable bouquet of psychological and characterological abnormalities. Moreover — and this is the far more important point — Greenwald isn’t changing the world. (Obviously, you must take that with many grains of salt; it’s only my overpowering feelings of jealousy, inadequacy, and utter intellectual impotence that make me entertain such revolting ideas.)

Here’s still another Greenwald tweet: “Despite the lies of some, I never once – never – said that a single doc was withheld because of ‘national security'” But as a followup tweet from his questioner makes clear, “national security” was used merely to summarize one of Greenwald’s deliberately vague and non-specific grounds for continuing to withhold documents (as, not coincidentally, the State prefers). And it isGreenwald who first introduced the notion of “harm” into the formula for determining which documents to release or withhold, and it isGreenwald who talks of not wanting to identify “covert agents” and the like. What is all that, if not “national security”? Ah, but it’s “national security” as determined by Greenwald, and not by the State — so that’s okey dokey. And, through a secret alchemical process, “national security” isn’t “national security” when Greenwald references questions of “national security,” at least in this particular context. (This is another tactic Greenwald favors: unequivocally stating that “A is terrible,” and then, when questioned several minutes or a day later, emphatically declaring: “I never said A is terrible! You completely misunderstood me!” Or even: “You’re lying!” All of which calls to mind:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”

Remember: we’re talking about power.)

And on and on it goes. And all this is from one exchange that I happened to see; I’ve read enough references to similar Twitter conversations and other exchanges to know that Greenwald “argues” in this manner very frequently whenever his methods are challenged. The “arguments” that he offers are all ones that Greenwald has ridiculed and criticized at length when they were offered by others.One of the lessons we can draw is the uniformity of the intellectual corruptions that occur when anyone is placed in a position of power — and when he seeks to protect that power, and when he enjoys its exercise. We should note that these kinds of responses to serious questioning are those of someone who can be described as an authoritarian bully (among other terms). As I said, the ironies are numerous, and awful.

And there can be no doubt that Greenwald is enjoying his power over the dissemination of the Snowden documents, and that he keenly appreciates the many values that power confers on him. Not least of those values are the marketing advantages that he seeks to exploit. And that’s what a lot of this is about: marketing. This is already longer than I had anticipated, so I’ll discuss the marketing aspects next time.

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.

Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower who released evidence of US war crimes to WikiLeaks, has announced that she identifies as a woman. “Given the way I feel and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible,” she wrote in a statement.

But the US Army, which will be incarcerating the whistleblower throughout her 35 year sentence, has shown no interest in respecting her gender identity. Manning will be caged with men throughout her sentence. Furthermore, Army spokesman George Wright has stated that “The Army does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for gender-identity disorder.”

Denying Manning hormone treatment and other transgender health care could have serious consequences for her. As the ACLU explained in a recent statement:

Gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition in which a person’s gender identity does not correspond to his or her assigned sex at birth, and hormone therapy is part of the accepted standards of care for this condition. Without the necessary treatment, gender dysphoria can cause severe psychological distress, including anxiety and suicide.

Denying Ms. Manning this care would violate the state’s own laws. As the ACLU notes, “courts have consistently found that denying such care to prisoners based on blanket exclusions violates the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.”

But denial of medical treatment is certainly not the only abuse that transgender inmates like Manning face in American prisons.  A 2007 study of California prisons found that “[s]exual assault is 13 times more prevalent among transgender inmates, with 59 percent reporting being sexually assaulted.”

These sexual assaults are often committed by guards, whose power over prisoners shields them from accountability. When prisoners assault transgender inmates, they are often aided and abetted by guards, who force trans* women into prostitution. Gabriel Arkles of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project testified at a Department of Justice hearing that “In these systems, corrections officers bring transgender women to the cell of male inmates and lock them in for the male inmate to have sex with.”

Victoria Law also notes that in some male prisons, “officers practice ‘V-Coding’–placing transgender and transsexual women in cells with sexually aggressive men.”

Because of this pervasive violence, transgender inmates are often placed in solitary confinement, ostensibly for their “protection.”  Yet solitary confinement is internationally recognized as a form of torture.

Before her trial, Manning was held in solitary for months on end, treatment that UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez concluded “constitutes at a minimum cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of article 16 of the convention against torture.”

When asked why Manning’s gender identity justified placing her in solitary, Marine Corps Master Sgt. Craig Blenis answered “that’s not normal, sir.” Years before she even came out publicly, Chelsea Manning was tortured by the United States government for her gender identity.

Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, remains optimistic. He does not fear for Ms. Manning’s safety in prison, because “Everyone that’s in a military prison is a first-time offender. These are soldiers who have done something wrong, have gone to prison and are really just trying to do their time and then get out.”

I hope that Mr. Coombs is correct. But given the military’s violence, authoritarianism, cultural conservatism, and abysmal record on sexual violence issues, I fear that Chelsea Manning may face brutal violence and abuse throughout her sentence.

Even if the state does not torture or brutalize Ms. Manning while she is incarcerated, it’s worth remembering that she should not be incarcerated or punished at all. Instead, she should be commended. Having witnessed atrocities, Chelsea Manning released the evidence to the public, hoping to help end the carnage. She exposed evidence of murder, torture, rape, and numerous other crimes. Her courageous actions warrant gratitude and respect, not bigotry and state violence.

Thank you, Chelsea Manning.

The bad networks do this, obviously. Al Qaeda has followed a consistent business model of goading Uncle Sam into doing utterly stupid things — a business model that never fails. AQ spent a relatively minor amount preparing and carrying out the 9/11 hijackings. In response, the United States became bogged down in two regional wars in South Asia and the Middle East that alienated public sentiment in the Islamic world, and embarked on a general policy of permanent war, torture and police statism that did irreparable damage to its reputation around the world. Entirely through its own responses to 9/11, the U.S. government has run up $1.5 trillion dollars in war debt and turned its civil aviation system into a comically totalitarian nightmare straight out of the movie “Brazil.”

Since then, Al Qaeda’s rope-a-dope policy has repeatedly paid off. Every time an AQ agent attempts another airline attack, the TSA implements a cumbersome, inconvenient and incredibly stupid policy to prevent that same tactic from ever being used again. Hijacking with box cutters? Make everybody empty their pockets of potentially lethal weapons like nail clippers. Shoe bomber? Make everybody take off their shoes. Underwear bomber? Invasive and demeaning pat-downs and body scans.

Al Qaeda has explicitly declared its strategy is no longer to maximize casualties, but to maximize Return on Investment by provoking the U.S. to impose the maximum possible cost on itself through its own stupidity. An “unsuccessful” attack is plenty successful, just so long as Uncle Stupid comes through as expected. It’s only a matter of time till some smart AQ operative figures out he can shut down the U.S. aviation system with body cavity searches by smuggling explosives in his rectum.

Although the current system of corporate-state hierarchies is ultimately doomed, if it were smart it could prolong its existence by coopting the network opposition as long as possible, minimizing conflict and instability, and extracting diminishing rents for another generation or two.

Instead, it’s responded to network attacks in a manner guaranteed to bring things to a head even faster and hasten its own death. The people running the corporate state couldn’t be doing a better job of bringing about their doom if we were writing the script for them ourselves.

Look how they respond to network attacks by the good guys. The U.S. government pursued its vindictive course against Manning to send a message to other potential whistleblowers. The problem is, those whistleblowers — among them Snowden — got the message loud and clear. What Snowden learned is, you don’t work within the system through normal channels, and you don’t play the “civil disobedience” game and take your punishment, unless you want to spend years naked in solitary awaiting trial and then be sentenced to most of your life in prison. You get the information distributed in secure places, get yourself safely out of the country, and then make your move.

The next whistleblower will do it even bigger and better, and learn from Snowden’s example. See, networks learn from their experiences. Hierarchies kill the messenger.

On top of that, the U.S. government’s draconian prosecutions of Manning and Aaron Schwartz have turned them into martyrs and created sympathy among millions of people around the world.

In its obsessive pursuit of Snowden, the U.S. alienated public opinion and national governments in most of Latin America by forcing down the Bolviian president’s plane. All of America’s attempts to conceal its real place in the world system through the illusion of “soft power,” hiding behind the UN Security Council and “international community,” were blown away by the naked exercise of the same kind of extraterritoriality the Europeans used in China a century ago.

Foreign resentment over the NSA surveillance revealed by Snowden has endangered U.S. trade deals with Europe and Latin America.

Everything the United States does, in its attempts to suppress the networked successor society, further undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the world public or its own domestic population, spur the formation of counter-coalitions of other countries sick of the U.S. running the world, and drive mainstream public adoption of encryption to evade surveillance. In every single response to attack, the old hierarchical society further intensifies the contradictions that will destroy it.

In short, the forces of the old hierarchical order — the weary giants of flesh and steel, as John Perry Barlow described them — are hanging themselves with their own rope.