President Obama commutes Chelsea Manning sentence

President Barack Obama has commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence for leaking confidential documents to Wikileaks in 2010. He will be released on May 17th.

President Barack Obama took a historic decision, he has commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010. The news was reported by The New York Times, Manning is due to be released on May 17th.

Chelsea Manning, born as Bradley Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in 2013 when he was serving the US Army passed diplomatic cables to the anti-secrecy group Wikileaks.

The data leak was one of the largest breaches of classified documents in the history of the United States.

At the time of the data leak, Bradley Manning was serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. He provided more than 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks, the huge trove of documents includes the video of a 2007 airstrike in Baghdad that caused the death of two Reuters employees.

Recently Wikileaks announced the Assange’s intention agree to US extradition if Obama grants Manning’s clemency.

“Obama may well have just saved Chelsea Manning’s life,” commented Sarah Harrison, who has defended Manning as Active Director of the Courage nonprofit. “Freeing her is clearly and unambiguously the right thing to do.”

She confirmed anyway the criticism for the President Obama’s decision to persecute Manning under the Espionage Act.

“Today’s news will not make good the harm done on Obama’s watch,” Harrison added. “Chelsea’s conviction under the Espionage Act and 35-year sentence set a terrible precedent that is left entirely intact by this commutation. Who knows what Donald Trump will do with this precedent, and these powers, that Obama has left him?”

The Manning’s commutation was part of a larger effort of the US Government that resulted in 209 commutations and 64 pardons. President Obama issued 1,385 grants of commutation during his administration, none made like him.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Chelsea Manning, Obama)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.