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Early this morning, Chelsea Manning – who was recently sentenced to 35 years for leaking classified documents – announced to the world that she would be transitioning: "As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use...

FORT MEADE, Maryland-A U.S. military judge on Tuesday started considering the sentence of soldier Bradley Manning for the largest leak of classified information in the country's history - and she said it will be announced Wednesday morning.

Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents describing the U.S. government's electronic spying programs while he was working for Dell Inc in April 2012, almost a year earlier than previously reported, according to U.S. officials and other sources familiar with the matter.

Psych: Army Wikileaker had gender ID issuesBy Michael Fink The soldier who leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents, may have done so because of a gender-identity crisis. That's what a psychologist said at private Bradley Manning's sentencing hearing. Manning apologized, saying he was dealing with a lot of issues when he leaked the material to Wikileaks. He faces 90 years for what's called the largest leak of classified material in U.S. history.

On the same day that Bradley Manning finally took to the stand and apologized for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks - the army he betrayed released a picture of the troubled soldier wearing a blond wig, makeup and lipstick. He addressed the court after a day of testimony about his troubled childhood in Oklahoma and the extreme psychological pressure that experts said he felt in the 'hyper-masculine' military because of his gender-identity disorder — his feeling that he was a woman trapped in a man's body.

A U.S. human rights group on Monday delivered a petition with more than 100,000 signatures urging that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize go to Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was convicted on espionage charges last month for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. Norman Solomon, the co-founder of RootsAction, delivered the petition in Oslo, Norway, on Monday to the research director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Prizes. Solomon said that Manning should receive the prize for exposing government secrecy and wrongdoing in the Iraq War. He argued that the Nobel committee’s selection of Manning...

The U.S. Marshals Service has lost track of about 2,000 encrypted two-way radios worth millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing internal records it had obtained through a public records request. The paper reported that the problems date back to at least 2011, when the Marshals were deploying new versions of the radios to communicate in the field. The Wall Street Journal said an internal technology office had warned about the issue, but the problems tracking the equipment persisted. "It is apparent that negligence and incompetence has resulted in a grievous mismanagement of millions of dollars...

Today's high-end televisions are almost all equipped with "smart" PC-like features, including Internet connectivity, apps, microphones and cameras. But a recently discovered security hole in some Samsung Smart TVs shows that many of those bells and whistles aren't ready for prime time. The flaws in Samsung Smart TVs, which have now been patched, enabled hackers to remotely turn on the TVs' built-in cameras without leaving any trace of it on the screen. While you're watching TV, a hacker anywhere around the world could have been watching you. Hackers also could have easily rerouted an unsuspecting user to a malicious website...

It's reported that Bradley Manning has been found guilty of five counts of espionage and five counts of theft, all of which means a very long time in prison. And he deserves it. Ignore for the moment the fact that he's not been found guilty of aiding the enemy. They key thing here is that the court has, rightly, found him guilty of betraying his country. Lock him up and throw away the key. There are whistle-blowers and then there are traitors, and Bradley Manning falls into the latter category. Of course, there are also different categories of traitors and...

Russian officials and human rights activists on Thursday slammed the U.S. for “threatening Russia” in a bid to have former NSA contractor Edward Snowden returned, as suspense mounts over the fugitive’s impending departure from Sheremetyevo Airport. “They [the U.S.] are asking Russia to discriminate against a U.S. citizen who has turned to Russia for temporary asylum and thus blatantly violate human rights,” Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer who is currently advising Snowden on immigration and other issues, told Interfax. In an unusual demonstration of solidarity with the government-connected lawyer, Svetlana Gannushkina, a prominent independent human rights activist who was nominated for...

FORT MEADE, Md. – A military judge refused Thursday to dismiss the most serious charge against Bradley Manning, the Army private who gave reams of classified information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The charge of aiding the enemy that Manning faces is punishable by up to life in prison without parole. Col. Denise Lind, the judge in Manning's court-martial, denied defense requests to drop that charge and a computer fraud charge, ruling that the government had presented some evidence to support each element of the charges.

Lawyers for the Army private who leaked a trove of classified government documents urged a judge Monday to dismiss a charge he aided the enemy, saying prosecutors failed to prove Pfc. Bradley Manning intended for the information to fall into enemy hands. The charge is the most serious and carries the most severe punishment—life in prison—in the case against Manning, who has acknowledged sending hundreds of thousands of documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The trial of the 25-year-old Oklahoma native is drawing to a close on a military base outside Baltimore and a judge hearing the government’s case is...

Europeans have overreacted to allegations that the United States had been snooping on them and vacuuming up huge amounts of phone and Internet data, cyber-savvy Estonia said in an interview published Thursday. “I could understand such condemnation from European countries that are lily white virgins and not themselves involved in these kinds of activities,” Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves told Estonia's leading Postimees daily. “But it is very hard to understand the criticism when you know how some big European states have acted in a similar way,” he said, pointing to recent revelations of German, French and British surveillance programs....

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, who has been holed up in a Moscow airport for more than two weeks, has agreed to an offer of political asylum from Venezuela, a top pro-Kremlin lawmaker said on Tuesday.

India today rejected a request for asylum by US whistleblower Edward Snowden made through its Mission in Moscow three days ago. "I can confirm that earlier today our Embassy in Moscow did receive a communication dated 30 June from Mr Edward Snowden. That communication did contain a request for asylum. We have carefully examined the request. Following that examination we have concluded that we see no reason to accede to the request," spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry said here. Snowden, a US former technical contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who leaked...

We can start with the spoiler. At the end of his newly released and massive revised edition of Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, Allen Weinstein makes the following observation: "As for the conspiracy theories themselves, we may expect that newer and perhaps more ingenious defenses of [Alger] Hiss may emerge, if only because none of the theories raised during the past six decades has proved persuasive. There has yet to appear, however, from any source, a coherent body of evidence that seriously undermines the credibility of the evidence against Alger Hiss." There will never be produced such a body of evidence,...

President says NSA will assess espionage allegations as France and Germany demand answers and warn of delay to trade talks Barack Obama has sought to limit the damage from the growing transatlantic espionage row after Germany and France denounced the major snooping activities of US agencies and warned of a possible delay in the launch next week of ambitious free-trade talks between Europe and the US. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and French president, François Hollande, demanded quick explanations from Washington about disclosures by the Guardian and Der Spiegel that US agencies bugged European embassies and offices. Berlin stressed there...

Snowden applies for asylum in Russia: immigration source MOSCOW | Mon Jul 1, 2013 12:36pm EDT (Reuters) - Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden has applied for political asylum in Russia, a Russian immigration source close to the matter said on Monday. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a Wikileaks activist who is traveling with Snowden handed his application to a Russian consulate.............

Trans-Atlantic relations plunged at the weekend as Berlin, Brussels and Paris all demanded that Washington account promptly and fully for new disclosures on the scale of the US National Security Agency’s spying on its European allies. As further details emerged of the huge reach of US electronic snooping on Europe, Berlin accused Washington of treating it like the Soviet Union, “like a cold war enemy”. … The reports of NSA snooping on Europe—and on Germany in particular—went well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying said to be focused on identifying suspected terrorists, extremists and organized criminals. Der Spiegel reported that...

Former NSA, CIA director: "The United States does conduct espionage" (CBS News) "The United States does conduct espionage," and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protecting the privacy of American citizens "is not an international treaty," former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden said Sunday on "Face the Nation," after a German magazine cited secret intelligence documents to charge U.S. spies of bugging European Union offices. "Any European who wants to go out and rim their garments with regard to international espionage should look first and find out what their own governments are doing," Hayden said. "Let's keep...