This week in press freedoms and privacy rights | Glenn Greenwald

The travesty calling itself "the Bradley Manning court-martial", the kangaroo tribunal calling itself "the FISA court", and the emptiness of what the Obama DOJ calls "your constitutional rights"

I'm on a (much-needed) quick vacation until Sunday, so I'll just post a few brief items from what has been a busy and important week of events, particularly when it comes to press freedom and privacy:

(1) In the utter travesty known as "the Bradley Manning court-martial proceeding", the military judge presiding over the proceeding yet again showed her virtually unbreakable loyalty to the US government's case by refusing to dismiss the most serious charge against the 25-year-old Army Private, one that carries a term of life in prison: "aiding and abetting the enemy". The government's theory is that because the documents Manning leaked were interesting to Osama bin Laden, he aided the enemy by disclosing them. Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler explained in the New Republic in March why this theory poses such a profound threat to basic press freedoms as it essentially converts all leaks, no matter the intent, into a form of treason.

"'Are you saying that a US citizen targeted by the United States in a foreign country has no constitutional rights?' she asked Brian Hauck, a deputy assistant attorney general. 'How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen? Where is the limit to this?'

"She provided her own answer: 'The limit is the courthouse door' . . . .

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