FBI Question Wikileaks Mother at Welsh Home: Agents Interrogate 'Distressed Woman'

[Hissyspit]

Source: Daily Mail

By ANDY WHELAN and SHARON CHURCHER
1 August 2010

The seriously ill British mother of the young American military intelligence officerat the centre of the investigation into leaks of classified Afghan war documents was left 'severely distressed' after FBI agents turned up unannounced at her home on Wales.

Susan Manning, whose son Bradley has been charged with leaking defense secrets, That appeared on the controversial WikiLeaks website, was questioned by two FBI officers believed To be attached to the U.S. embassy on London.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299311/FBI-question-WikiLeaks-mother-Welsh-home-Agent-interrogate-distressed-woman-search-sons-bedroom.html

[Proletariatprincess]

1. Bullies...

US Law enforcement doesn't know any other way to act. If mommie is a commie....

[EFerrari]

2. All class as usual. Good going, guys.

Harassing mothers. I hope yours are proud.

[loudsue]

3. The british govt shouldn't have let them do that to her.

Countries are supposed to PROTECT their citizens.

[24601]

4. President Obama's FBI has no police powers in the UK and she

could have declined to meet with them. Unless a British judge issued a warrant, there is no grounds for a search - and if there was a warrant, it would be executed by the Brits, not the FBI. Reading the article, it looks like it was a search with consent.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Or she didn't know her rights

and the FBI took advantage of that.

[mr1956]

24. The headline is misleading, she wasn't interrogated

"Mr Manning’s aunt Sharon Staples told how her sister Susan, 56, pleaded for help down the phone, sobbing: ‘They’re here, they’re here.’
Mrs Staples then spoke to the Welsh police officer on the phone and demanded that her sister should not be interrogated because she was in poor health and had speech difficulties following a stroke four years ago.
Mrs Manning’s son had left her Haverfordwest home for the US a year earlier.

The officials agreed to leave Mrs Manning and, after searching her son’s bedroom, went to Mrs Staples’s home in nearby Milford Haven.

Mrs Staples said it was ‘by chance’ that she happened to call her sister just minutes after the three officials arrived at Mrs Manning’s home at the beginning of July.

Mrs Staples said: ‘As soon as I spoke to them and asked them not to stress her out, they backed down."

No bullying, no "interrogation". It's all in the article.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299311/FBI-question-WikiLeaks-mother-Welsh-home-Agent-interrogate-distressed-woman-search-sons-bedroom.html#ixzz0vLKohHL7

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[annm4peace]

6. this will only fuel those who support Bradley and call for his release

Many support his leaking of the video. Many professionals support Bradley's actions and said he was the one following the law

[flamingdem]

7. That's an outrage nt

[JDPriestly]

8. This is being done to inflict psychological pain and pressure on Manning.

It is a sort of blackmail.

I don't know what to think about the leak of all this material. It seems to me that some of the information was kept secret not because it would be dangerous if the public was informed of it but because it would be embarrassing.

Some of the information was withheld from the public in order to keep Americans ignorant of what the military is really doing in Afghanistan. But this may not be true of all of it. I just don't know how to judge what portion of the information leaked would simply embarrass our government and what portion would truly endanger someone. No one can know at this point.

But, the evidence pointing to Manning, the small amounts of it that I have heard about (which is very little), leaves such a clear trail to Manning that I wonder if he could really have been on the one hand so clever about getting this information to Assange and the other, so stupid about hiding his identity. The whole connection to Manning may well be true, but I really have questions about it.

Manning looks like such a young, naive kid.

This is such a strange situation.

[boppers]

10. He was a young, stupid, self-important, braggart.

That was his undoing.

"I'm a leet haxor, I spill secrets!" (Which is pretty much how this went down)... is a great way to lose trust from people who actually do spill secrets, and have them sic the FBI (or whatever) on you.

Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk don't know.

[Hissyspit]

13. Yeah, one of those young, stupid, self-important braggarts we send to kill in foreign lands no

matter what it does to them.

Yes, he should have kept his mouth shut.

No, we don't know his side of the story of how he outed himself. He's in solitary confinement.

[boppers]

16. Actually, the computer community *does* know.

He outed himself to Lamo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Lamo

Lamo realized it was radioactive, and punted to the Feds.

[Hissyspit]

17. I've read all that. nt

[No Elephants]

33. How could you possibly read it? You're not a member of the "computer community" are you?

(Sorry, I find Boppers so funny.)

[boppers]

54. Which demograohic groups are you part of?

Lamo's not exactly famous to, oh, knitters, stamp collectors, gardeners, postal workers, (etc.)..

[No Elephants]

31. LOL.

[me b zola]

18. "fuck off"

"I've got this"

[daleo]

19. He would have been called a hero in the 80's

Exposing an occupying power's (USSR) misdeeds in Afghanistan. But now, we are the Soviets, and we treat whistleblowers the same way.

[cstanleytech]

27. Ah but the difference between th USSR and our invasion is

the government at the time of our invasion of Afghanistan was harboring the group that carried out 9/11 not to mention the people running Afghanistan at the time of our invasion were assholes for destroying so many ancient artifacts.
Our governments mistake(for which Bush is just lucky stupidity is not an impeachable offense) was deciding to invade Iraq because that took the focus off the job that needed to be done in Afghanistan.

[No Elephants]

32. And we know that because Dummya and Cheney said so!

"the government at the time of our invasion of Afghanistan was harboring the group that carried out 9/11 not to mention the people running Afghanistan at the time of our invasion were assholes for destroying so many ancient artifacts."

We know they lied about WMD, but we're 100% sure about everything they said about Bin Laden's whereabouts after 911--and then some? Oh, and who helped turn Bin Laden into an Afghani folk hero in the first place? Besides, according to them, Bin Laden probably hightailed it out of Afghanistan, possibly under a burqa, within a few days.

As far as ancient artifacts, give me a break. Our troops deliberately allowed the emptying of the Baghdad Museum as soon as we took the city, including some of the earliest artifacts of our civilization, including the 4,000 year old tablets on which the code of Hammurabi were carved. Besides, since when is destruction of a nation's own artifacts a defensible causus belli?

A heinous, criminal act was committed on our soil by 20 or so deluded men, mostly Saudis, at the direction of Bin Ladin, another Saudi, not an act of war by the nation or people of Afghanistan. Dummya then asked Congress to declared"War on Terror," which is about literally a "war" as the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs. Once that happened, the "unitary executive" had a blank check to do whatever he pleased.

Sorry, nothing justified our bombing those people, nor our 10 year occupation of their country.

eta: Btw, interesting profile:

"eUsername: cstanleytech

Send private message Add to buddy list

Profile name Profile value
Member since Nov 26th 2006
Number of posts 1190
Avatar Image
Gender undeclared
State Georgia
Country US"

[tomp]

41. actually, there are so many key questions about 9/11 left unanswered...

...that no one at this point can say what actually happened (in totality) or who was involved.

[cstanleytech]

64. You are talking about stuff I didnt even post about

as well as trying everything in the book to justify your view (some of which I agree with you on btw) but I forgive you because this is an emotional subject that is for sure but try taking a deep breath next time instead.

[sabrina 1]

22. He is a hero and the more they harrass his mother

and others the more support he is getting from all over the world. In fact, their bullying, lying tactics since the release of the documents, has only emphasized why they need to be exposed, all of them.

This government illegally and wrongfully endangered the lives of U.S. troops and slaughtered over one million human beings. They tortured and maimed women and children, the elderly, disabled and displaced millions from their homes. Not one criminal responsible for those crimes has been held accountable.

And THEY have the nerve to accuse anyone of endangering lives. It is laughable, and yes, the world did laugh when they hard that.

Best thing they could do now is stop lying, because if it is true that our Intelligence Agencies actually put the names and addresses of informants in documents that were available to everyone in the military, including contractors and who knows who else, then they are just plain stupid and all of them should be fired.

And if they are not lying and did not do such a stupid thing, then they should have accepted the invitation from Wikileaks to look at the documents and remove anything that might endanger someone. But they refused to do that. From start to finish, if there's blood on anyone's hands, it is not that soldier's and it is not Wikileaks. And they should stop making fools of themselves by making such idiotic claims.

[sabrina 1]

23. You are defending him than, probably unwittingly

If those who don't know talk, I presume you mean people like Manning, then he is not the one they want, is he?

[boppers]

55. More here:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/08/01/mit_graduate_admits_link_in_leak_case/

This doesn't begin and end with Manning, one operating theory is that he was a guy with access who got played, and is now taking the fall.

[brentspeak]

58. You met him and can verify this? n/t

[boppers]

70. Chat logs. Read them for yourself.

http://www.dailytech.com/UPDATE+ManningLamo+Chat+Logs+Released+Lamo+Claims+Wikileaks+Betrayal/article18841.htm

[flyarm]

61. I don't for a moment believe it is embarrassing, our government is covering up war crimes! eom

[SoapBox]

9. Gee...I'm surprised that the FBI Thugs didn't cuff and shackle her and haul her off...

[dencol]

25. Or tase her!

That seems to be the M.O. of law enforcement.

[flyarm]

62. or put her in a coffin like box with bugs like was done before by our government to children? eom

[IScreamSundays]

11. All of a sudden...

Daily Mail has DU street cred??

[Hissyspit]

12. Here's some info from the Telegraph from a few days ago:

His uncle, Kevin Fox, said the soldier’s arrest and imprisonment in a military jail had taken its toll on his mother Susan, who lives in Haverfordwest.

“She hasn’t been well,” he said, adding that if Mr Manning had leaked the documents: “I think the boy did the right thing.”

Another close relative, who asked not to be named, said: “His mum didn't know anything about what he was doing and it's come as a big shock. She's very upset.”

Susan Manning, 56, moved to the US in 1979 after marrying Bradley’s American father Brian Manning, a former serviceman who was based at the Cawdor Barracks in Brawdy, near Haverfordwest.

From Daily Mail:

Mrs Staples said that after Mr Manning’s arrest in May, she was warned by his father in the US that the FBI planned to visit the family in Wales.
She added: ‘My brother-in-law said to me, “They are going to send a team of people over from the FBI to speak to Susan.”

‘They were in plain clothes and we think they had travelled from the American Embassy in London. They had a list of questions to ask. They wanted to build up a picture of Bradley’s background. ‘They went to him , then they went to his daughter, then they came here. But Susan was not expecting them.’

- snip -

Mrs Staples said her sister’s health had deteriorated further since her son’s arrest.

She said: ‘Susan won’t even read the newspapers. That’s her way of dealing with it. She doesn’t want to face it. ‘She doesn’t like meeting people. It has set her back. It has made her even worse now.’

Asked if the family was aware that Bradley was unhappy in the military – he is reported to have raged against the US Army on his Facebook page – Mrs Staples replied: ‘No.

Very similar. If you have any evidence that this search did not take place, by all means, post it.

[liberation]

14. Who needs evidence?

when tangential nonsensical "arguments" will do...

I wonder what issue the perennial center-right apology contingent in DU has with the Daily Mail? I'd be ironic if the average American "moderate" conservative were to have no clue that ideologically they are far more in line with the Daily Mail than with the Telegraph.

[No Elephants]

34. Are you saying this never happened? Or that the article misdescribes the event?

If neither, what is your point, if any?

[Dystopian]

15. KandR.

peace~

[HEyHEY]

20. Oh, how dare the FBI do their job and try to find out what happened with this leak

You realize if this manner of investigation isn't done a risk of a repeat is intensified? Not like I care, but next time it could be secrets that really SHOULDN'T be public knowledge.

[dencol]

26. Intelligence agencies didn't do their jobs in the first place.

That's what got us into war... somebody didn't leak that they knew there were no WMDs and the Taliban in Afghanistan would likely scatter as soon as boots hit the ground.

[24601]

35. WMD in Afghanistan? Are you talking about Iraq? Wasn't Operation

Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) about Al Qaeda and, by extension, the Taliban. The WMD issue was IraQ/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). OEF/Afghanistan wasn't based on any trumped-up Intel Estimate. On the contrary, the most common criticism is that Intel DIDN'T raise the alarm. Here's the AUMF wording:

"That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."

In the days after 9-11, Congress would have authorized military force based booger-flicking. Go back and look at the notables who voted yes - if they we in congress in 2001, they supported it. The House vote with 10 not voting, was 420 yes, 1 no, Representative Barbara Lee (D-Ca) was the sole exception. In the Senate, the vote was 98-0 with Craig & Helms not voting.

From wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists)

"The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (Pub.L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224, enacted September 18, 2001), one of two resolutions commonly known as "AUMF" (the other being "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002"), was a joint resolution passed by the United States Congress on September 14, 2001, authorizing the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001. The authorization granted the President the authority to use all "necessary and appropriate force" against those whom he determined "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the September 11th attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups. The AUMF was signed by President George W. Bush on September 18, 2001."

President Obama often has said in effect that Afghanistan is not a war of choice but of necessity .

[HEyHEY]

67. Yes.... and?

How does this effect them talking to this guy's mom now?

[MH1]

37. You think names of Afghan locals helping the US * SHOULD * be public knowledge?

I wonder what they and their families think?

[flyarm]

63. what about those exposed by Valerie Plame being outted???????

that was done by the top of our government..you think no one was killed when it was found out many could be double agents working with a CIA operative..oh and what was the punishment for that??????????

Oh yeah the top boys who out people never have blood on their hands do they???????????

Nor do they spend time in the pokey!

[HEyHEY]

65. I don't think they should be. But there's other stuff in there that should be

[tomp]

42. the list of things that need to be kept secret....

....is about a million times longer than it needs to be in a just society.

the vast majority of government secrets are the means to cover up crimes and should be exposed.

where were these dedicated investigators when odd behavior was reported at flight schools?

[MH1]

47. an investigator did report the odd behavior at flight schools

it was ignored by their superiors, as I recall

odd behavior may not mean anything ... a known release of classified information is somewhat different.

[tomp]

51. correct on "ignored by superiors".

interesting what the government pursues, though. i mean, they're kinda supposed to know what means something, no?

you apparently have much more faith in government and decisions on secrecy.

just because something is classified, doesn't mean it should be, or even isn't known by others who shouldn't know it. for
example, i'll bet "al qaeda" knows all this "classified" info that's coming out now. it's just we who don't. also, my
point about the flight schools is that the government has either failed to investigate or has "classified" all the key
questions about 9/11. this is obvious, and does not inspire confidence in the watchdogs.

it's all cover up of imperialist crimes.

[HEyHEY]

66. How is that even an argument?

"Oh they fucked up 911 so now they can't try to prevent future issues by figuring out what they did wrong"

[provis99]

69. so would you be in favor of Iranian security walking into an American's home

in Chicago or St.Louis and demanding to see anything they want?

[cprise]

21. We don't know!

None of us know if it was actually Manning that Lamo was chatting with.

Someone in the military could have been setting Manning up (claiming to leak vast amounts of State Dept. data) as retaliation for leaking the helicopter video. Wikileaks say they haven't received such data.

When you think about it, that's an easy way to turn a whistle blower into a traitor and make it socially acceptable to persecute him.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

28. there weren't many leaks during the Bush administration?

[saigon68]

29. LOL

Lots of Islamic children "got greased" too under the Chimp

[Rosa Luxemburg]

50. I guess Bush and cheney were the leakers

[MH1]

36. I'd be extremely distressed too, if I raised a son to be a traitor.

[Karenina]

40. Oh, dear...

:hi::nuke:

[tomp]

43. should we hang him before or after the inevitable guilty verdict? nt

[MH1]

45. I oppose the death penalty

on the other hand, I wouldn't be upset for this guy, once his guilt has been determined (assuming he is guilty, which I am assuming from what I've read - it seems the evidence is VERY strong against him) if he is released to general population of whatever prison he's in, for like 30 seconds or so, not long enough for them to kill him ya know?

(My reasons for opposing the death penalty are complex and don't signify that I am against retribution when just and sensible.)

[Hissyspit]

59. Kill whistleblowers!

War criminals? Not so much.

[Honeycombe8]

38. An elderly woman became very distressed just because a house I was buying was...

being inspected and found some minor problems. The elderly woman was the owner's mother, whose task it was was to house sit.

It doesn't take much to upset some people. But when your son is suspected of leaking security documents, the least you can expect is to be questioned. You don't want to be questioned? Then raise your children not to make waves or become political.

[MH1]

39. Leaking information you've sworn an oath to protect is not just 'making waves'

but otherwise you are very correct.

[cstanleytech]

49. Its not always so black and white.

Leaking current troop movements or future battleplans or the names of informants shouldnt be done but leaking illegal actions by the government though is another story alltogether, the government should not be allowed to cover up illegal actions after all on its part or on the part of those within the government or who work for the government like the military.

[Brooklyns_Finest]

44. Is Manning even a Citizen?

I don't know the background, but if he still has a bedroom in Britian, it leads me to believe that he was raised there. Did he ever get naturalized? Is his father an American? In any case, maybe we should have thought better before giving out top secret information to a foriegner. Yikes.

So we are in the mess because a Brit (Manning) passed on top secret information to an Aussie (Assange), who decided to post it on the internet.

[MH1]

46. he's under UCMJ in any case, I'm sure

which means he is in a world of shit.

[cstanleytech]

48. Some of you need to chill out.

So what if they questioned her a bit, its not like they arrested her and as long as they respected Manning's aunts wishes to please leave because she claimed it would be stressful for Manning's mother so relax people.

[suffragette]

52. Looks like they're aggressively going after anyone associated in

anyway with Wikileaks.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8859153#8859349

But going after the people who actually committed war crimes?

Not so much.

[lynne]

53. Hello?? This is a surprise -

- that the FBI would be investigating anyone close to him? I would think it would be automatic in this situation. Maybe he should have thought of the repercussions that his friends and family would pay beforehand. Or could have least given his family a "heads-up".

[BillH76]

56. The US govt and bourgeois media have succeeded in changing the subject.

See what they've got us talking about? The leaker, rather than the content of the leak. They think we are chumps, and we are proving them right.

[izquierdista]

57. Deport them

Immediately. And suggest that other Commonwealth countries put them on the permanent "Do Not Enter" list.

[pleah]

60. Assholes!

[lovuian]

68. What would stop them from killing his mother or any of his

family? in a country who used waterboarding and torture
what would stop them

[Pavulon]

71. The value of the information not being worth the trouble.

other than that nothing. Russia killed a guy in London under police protective care with thorium. A horrific way to die and a final fuck you to the man, they could have just shot him.

I guess the information or act warranted it in THEIR minds.

It a military matter, not a civilian one.