Wednesday, January 15, 2014

14-01-15 US: THE NEW POLITICAL PRISONERS: LEAKERS, HACKERS AND ACTIVISTS

THE NEW POLITICAL PRISONERS: LEAKERS, HACKERS AND ACTIVISTS

  • Bradley Manning
    Jeremy Hammond
    Andrew Auernheimer
    Barrett Brown
    Tim DeChristopher
    John Kiriakou
    Eric McDavid

Introduction


Bradley Manning
prevprev/next
On February 28th, Army private first class Bradley Manning pleaded not guilty to the charge of aiding the enemy for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010. After more than 1,000 days in prison, Manning may be America's most famous political prisoner – but he's far from the only one. From environmentalists to hackers to whistleblowers, the U.S. government has made a policy of charging and convicting a wide range of activists across the country. To the FBI, an information transparency activist like the late Aaron Swartz is apparently more dangerous than the men who ruined the nation's economy, and an environmentally-minded economics student poses a greater threat than the oil companies polluting America's natural resources. The government insists that such harsh penalties are necessary to protect national security – but as hacker Jeremy Hammond said in a recent letter from prison, this misleading rhetoric ultimately "enables the politically motivated prosecution of anyone who voices dissent."
By Meredith Clark
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/lists/the-new-political-prisoners-leakers-hackers-and-activists-20130301

No comments: