A women delivers a speech as she stands on a chair of the public art project “Anything to Say?” at the Alexander Square in Berlin, Germany, Friday, May 1, 2015. The sculpture of the Italian artist Davide Dormino shows the whistleblowers Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, from right, to honour their courage.
Chelsea Manning, the imprisoned U.S. Army whistleblower, reluctantly took to Twitter late last month to ask for help with legal fees relating to a crucial appeal in her quest for freedom.
We only have one shot to make several points in our case at the Army Court of Criminal Appeals in the next year.
— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) April 21, 2015
Manning is serving a 35-year sentence in a Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, military prison for leaking hundreds of classified documents to WikiLeaks, exposing international corruption and human rights violations by the U.S. military and government.
Though she lamented the need to turn her popular Twitter account “into a fund drive,” she said she had no choice, as she was almost $100,000 behind on her legal bills.
You can send donations through the Chelsea Manning Support Network (@SaveManning): http://t.co/zXVqYZGtKh
— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) April 21, 2015
Before election, Barack Obama promised to make his administration the most transparent one in history, but instead, he’s waged an unprecedented attack on whistleblowers and journalism alike since taking office. In her most recent editorial for The Guardian, Manning warned of the chilling effect to free speech in this atmosphere of oppression:
“When freedom of information and transparency are stifled, then bad decisions are often made and heartbreaking tragedies occur – too often on a breathtaking scale that can leave societies wondering: how did this happen? Think about the recent debates on torture, assassination by unmanned aircraft, secret warrants and detentions, intelligence and surveillance courts, military commissions, immigration detention centers and the conduct of modern warfare.
… I believe that when the public lacks even the most fundamental access to what its governments and militaries are doing in their names, then they cease to be involved in the act of citizenship. There is a bright distinction between citizens, who have rights and privileges protected by the state, and subjects, who are under the complete control and authority of the state.”
But Manning’s case, along with those of other imprisoned or exiled whistleblowers like Jeremy Hammond, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, highlight the high potential costs of truth telling, both in stolen lives and in the literal expenses of lengthy legal battles against a government with almost limitless resources.
Chris Strangio, one of Manning’s attorneys, told Bloomberg Politics in March that Manning’s “work around trans justice is inextricably tied to her larger critique of the government with foreign policy.”
Manning herself linked the struggles together in her December editorial for The Guardian:
“We should all have the absolute and inalienable right to define ourselves, in our own terms and in our own languages, and to be able to express our identity and perspectives without fear of consequences and retribution. We should all be able to live as human beings – and to be recognized as such by the societies we live in.”
In what Bloomberg’s Emily Greenhouse called “a small ray of sunlight at Leavenworth,” Manning recently forced the government to acknowledge her gender in future legal filings.
“The government can no longer attempt to erase Chelsea’s identity by referring to her as male in every legal filing,” responded Strangio to the ruling.
But while she has a voice to express herself through The Guardian and on Twitter, her chance at fighting for her freedom may remain financially out of reach.