Chelsea Manning (1987 - )

Thu Dec 17, 1987

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Chelsea Elizabeth Manning is an American activist and whistleblower who was born on this day in 1987. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly 750,000 classified, or unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents.

Among the documents released was the infamous “Collateral Murder” video, which depicted two American helicopters firing on Reuters journalists and children. Manning was imprisoned from 2010 until 2017, when her sentence was commuted by Barack Obama.

“When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.”

- Chelsea Manning

  • @AlpacaChariotEnglish
    14•1 year ago

    Louis Theroux did a really good interview with Manning, I’d recommend it to anyone who finds this interesting.

    She didn’t say so, but I got the impression she regrets releasing the documents to wikileaks because the whole Assange thing has followed her ever since. She wants to be remembered for what she did, not tied up in the Wikileaks saga. She did first try to contact some more traditional journalists before publishing and I think the whole thing would be seen differently if, for example, The Guardian had accepted the material and filtered it so that there was less risk to current sources and operations (like the Snowden files).