Wikileaks

[Cerozero]

Some news agencies do. When Wiki Leaks began leaking the cables they sent sent 300 cables ahead to The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais and posted them on their website after they had been released by those news organizations. This is how they release cables. They archive cables on their site after the mainstream media posts them.

Not everyone in news is spineless but it hurts the ones on our TVs have to be.

 

[cantab]

The BBC has plenty of reports about the Wikileaks cables, although it's fair to say they seem to have made the front page less most recently than stories about Assange himself. This is the news agency that's funded by the British government. So, KB, what will happen to the Beeb?

 

[Cerozero]

We are now torturing US citizens before their trials.

 

[Wikey]

US citizens who represent everything the US claims to stand for, no less. I just want to add support to the notion that we fail as a species.

 

[Son of Disaster]

We are now torturing US citizens before their trials.

That's a bit of a sensational line to put. You made it seem like physical abuse of the regular populus. The man is the military and therefore falls under the uniform code of military justice, not civilian courts. UCMJ is much much harsher than the civilian version and he is also being charged with an incredibly serious offense especially in the military. He basically could be charged with treason. So it's not surprising that he's kept in solitary. As for solitary being torture i think that's a bit of a stretch in the meaning of the word and wasn't exactly the best way to present the article here.

 

[cantab]

As for solitary being torture i think that's a bit of a stretch in the meaning of the word

So did I. But with so many studies, over many decades, indicating that long-term solitary confinement has many of the same effects as physical torture, it's not at all clear.

A person in the military is entitled to the same human rights as a civilian.

 

[Morm]

Solitary is as much torture as any physical pain, though shit like waterboarding is a class all its own, unless the person has an off the charts adoration for adrenaline. People thrive on validation, require it. We are also exceptionally social and require everyday social interactions. If you disagree, do a test for yourself. It's why isolation fosters depression, if you've never experienced someone going through that (even if they are around people...they can be isolated. Long story, different topic) then you really don't have a point of reference.

 

[Son of Disaster]

I never said solitary isn't mentally demanding or damaging but i think it's a stretch in the meaning of torture in the context cerozero used it. It brought to my mind images of beatings and pain, not a man sitting in a cell with tv. And from the article's description he's in as regular a solitary condition as any other. He is alone through the majority of the day but gets an hour out. Is he not being provided the same basic human rights as a civilian?

 

[Cerozero]

Solitary confinement is a punishment for prisoners who are a danger to themselves and others. Bradley has never been convicted of a crime in his life and is not a danger to those around him yet he's being subjected to this level of confinement.

Edit: Picture yourself in a cell with a bed no pillow, no blanket and you are not allowed to exercise. You have been there for twenty-three hours of every day for the last seven months. Solitary confinement for a few days is a punishment but when you've got it this bad it's clearly torture.

Edit Edit: I'm starting to think you've didn't read the article and have never been confined to a room for more than a few minutes.

 

[Morm]

Solitary proper requires sensory deprivation (low or no light, little or no auditory stimulus), a cell you can neither stand nor lay down fully in, no TV (who the fuck thinks that is solitary...) and no Out time. It is what it is, you alone with your mind. Weak ass torture methods, what is this world coming to?

 

[Lanturn314]

Yeah, solitary confinement definitely can be seen as torture. The sensory deprivation and social isolation can lead to severe psychiatric symptoms, and there are scads of papers on the subject that can be found through a simple search of google scholar. This one even claims that there is a unique set of symptoms that are experienced by people placed in solitary, and that it can be classified as a "major, clinically distinguishable psychiatric syndrome. The full text PDF is worth reading, but I linked the main page just to show the other things that linked to it, because a lot of those also provide insight.

In case you think that's tl;dr, though, I'll summarize the symptoms here:
-generalized hyperresponsiveness to external stimuli
-perceptual distortions, hallucinations, and derealization experiences
-paranoia
-massive free-floating anxiety
-disturbances of memory and attention

Of course, the sample size was small, but these symptoms were reported consistently among the prisoners, who did not appear to have these symptoms before entering solitary.

Of course, the degree of severity would definitely be dependent on the degree of social isolation and sensory deprivation experienced.



The lesson to take away from this is that to say that solitary confinement is not a form of torture is ridiculous.

 

[Cerozero]

It's like we can't even do torture right anymore.

 

[Morm]

It's like we can't even do torture right anymore.

You're pickin up what I'm putting down.


Lanturn forgot to mention that psychiatric pain can commonly present as physical pain and that this shit can lead to a very rapid downward spiral. It's hideous dude, every waking moment is torture and you're one escape (sleep) is miserable to get to and continue, unless you get hypersomnia which is YAY!

Anyways, off topic a bit but still relevant I guess.

 

[Cerozero]

All of the things lanturn listed sound terrible but the symptoms that scare me the most are:

-generalized hyperresponsiveness to external stimuli
-massive free-floating anxiety

Those two alone seem like they could turn you into a quivering shadow of a person

 

[Morm]

Anxiety and Depression work on a sliding, complimentary scale that is very difficult to wade through.

 

[Lanturn314]

Yeah, the symptoms definitely differ in severity from person to person and based on the amount of social isolation and sensory deprivation experienced. Also, this was just one study. The point of that was that the psychological aspect of torture can't be denied.

And yes, Anxiety and Depression are very much related. In fact, the medication given for both disorders is often the same-- SSRIs.

 

[Son of Disaster]

Got it. i get it can be seen as torture. But i hardly think someone who gets out every day and has access to tv in his cell is being tortured.
Besides that i did read the article which is horrendously biased. It didn't mention that Lamo was the one who turned Manning in but instead made him seem to adore him. It also didn't say what manning is allowed to do just what he isn't. And it doesn't give the brig's reason for solitary confinement of manning. I suspect it would go along the lines of other inmates wanting to harm him. He wouldn't exactly be well liked for, as some would see it, betraying his country. Therefore they put him in solitary for his protection from others.

 

[JimBob]

The article seemed to imply that he only had access to a television during his one hour out, not in his cell.

 

[vcordie]

The more I read stuff on wikileaks the angrier I become. We fail as a species.

 

[Chubbs]

Oookkkkaaayyyyy. Why the fuck is someone who has not even been put in a court before getting put in solitary? Seriously, that shit is wrong.

 

[MrIndigo]

Oookkkkaaayyyyy. Why the fuck is someone who has not even been put in a court before getting put in solitary? Seriously, that shit is wrong.

Because he's in the military. Military tribunals are part of the Executive government, not the Judiciary arm.

 

[Cerozero]

Because he's in the military. Military tribunals are part of the Executive government, not the Judiciary arm.

Ok, that may be true but I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

I thought this was funny:

 

[MrIndigo]

Ok, that may be true but I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

An argument can be made that by enlisting in the military, you are undertaking an additional jurisdiction that's much harsher than the standard rights of trial you might have had.

It's not a very good one, though, because the legal authority for the military to do it is questionable in the first place.

 

[Son of Disaster]

An argument can be made that by enlisting in the military, you are undertaking an additional jurisdiction that's much harsher than the standard rights of trial you might have had.

It's not a very good one, though, because the legal authority for the military to do it is questionable in the first place.

Why would it be questionable?

 

[MrIndigo]

Why would it be questionable?

It's an encroachment on the division of powers in the constitution. Certain things are unambiguously reserved for the Executive Government, some things reserved for the Legislative Government, and some things are exclusive to the Judicial Government.

Among the things under the Judiciary head of power is the ability to hold trials and determinations of fact/guilt. Tribunals are run by the executive arm, usually as part of a governing/specialist body for a particular field. For instance, the Industrial Relations Act (created by Parliament) creates an Industrial Relations Commission (part of the executive), which can hold tribunals on Industrial Relations issues without them needing to go to court (the Judiciary). Tribunals or tribunal bodies are typically set up by the legislature in such a way that they are subordinate to the judiciary (e.g. the decision of a tribunal can be appealed to the higher court), or by the judiciary otherwise according to delegate some level of their power to the tribunal body.

In the first case, then the judiciary has a supervisory capacity anyway, which means that the standard rules governing due process etc. still typically apply. In the latter, the court can't delegate power it doesn't have, so you still have due process rules etc.

Military tribunals are part of the executive government, as all military things are. The issue with military tribunals is that they often try to violate various procedural requirements that normally operate in the judiciary. A common example is that they try and keep them confidential so the judiciary can't supervise, but that often involves creating procedural disadvantages. e.g. in the David Hicks case, he was charged with offences, but wasn't told what they were because they would compromise national security. This meant he couldn't mount a defence.

The reason it's questionable is because it's not clear that the Executive government are actually given the power in the Constitution to operate in this way, because they are usurping the role of the judiciary.