Bradley Manning

The military trial of Bradley Manning is a judicial lynching. The government has effectively muzzled the defense team. The Army private first class is not permitted to argue that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law to make public the war crimes he uncovered. The documents that detail the crimes, torture and killing Manning revealed, because they are classified, have been barred from discussion in court, effectively removing the fundamental issue of war crimes from the trial.

– Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges in Truthdig

Zero tolerance

The National Security Agency moved swiftly and forcefully … to remind its employees of its longstanding zero-tolerance policy on conscience, warning that any violation of that policy would result in immediate termination.

“When you sign on to work at the N.S.A. you swear to uphold the standards of amorality and soullessness that this agency was founded upon,” said N.S.A. director General Keith B. Alexander. “Any evidence of ethics, decency, or a sense of right and wrong will not be tolerated. These things have no place in the intelligence community.”

– Andy Borowitz in The New Yorker in a bit of irony