Bradley Manning, Victim of the National Surveillance State

Jack Balkin is a Yale professor of law who has written an interesting post entitled "Bradley Manning, Barack Obama and the National Surveillance State" on his blog Balkinization. There is much worth reading, but here is the key bit:

All of which brings me to Private Bradley Manning. The Obama Defense Department's treatment of Manning, a American citizen, has employed the sort of harsh techniques that candidate Obama and his supporters would have loudly decried if applied to Guantanamo Bay inmates or to another American citizen, Jose Padilla.

It's worth noting that if Private Manning were a prisoner of war, his treatment at the hands of the Obama Administration would violate the Geneva Conventions; indeed, if he were an non-uniformed enemy combatant, his treatment would probably violate Common Article III. Apparently, President Obama has gone Attorney General Alberto Gonzales one better. Not only must he believe that the protections of the Geneva Conventions are quaint, he must also think the same of the Bill of Rights, at least as applied to leakers--or at least, leakers whom the President and his associates did not authorize.

P.J. Crowley was fired for pointing out the obvious, that the treatment of Manning was counterproductive. He forgot to add, illegal and unconstitutional as well. By telling us the obvious, Crowley forced Obama to acknowledge the fact of the Defense Department's actions in public, and to report calmly to the press that that the DOD had informed him that everything is perfectly acceptable.

Of course, since the DOD is mistreating Manning, what exactly did he expect that they would tell him? This is a bit like President Bush asking John Yoo whether the United States is committing torture. Of course John Yoo is not going to tell you that you are committing torture; the very reason he is there is to tell you that everything is perfectly fine.

The American people did not vote for the "national security state". In fact, most don't realize that the nature of the country has changed over the last 10 years. They are too busy making ends meet during the Great Recession.

Most people have no idea what path is being trod by their country:

In July 2009, I explained that we were witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimation of the National Surveillance State, in which the President's power to detain, surveil, and punish at his discretion would be greatly expanded. In the treatment of Bradley Manning, we can see a glimmer of what this will mean in practice. Unless there is a public outcry, we have no guarantee that this exceptional incident will prove truly exceptional. After all, if a liberal Democratic President is willing to look the other way in this case, what can we expect of future presidents of either party?