Bradley Manning Is So Much More Intelligent Than The Official Line Portrays Him..

WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning "designed Facebook" as a schoolboy, friends say

This person sounds much more.. capable of the know how needed to engineer such a massive transfer of information, and the thoughtfulness to understand and stand up for his beliefs and motivations. Excerpts:

Bradley Manning, the prime suspect in the leaking of top secret documents to the WikiLeaks website, was such a computer expert that he designed a version of Facebook years before modern social networking sites took off, friends have disclosed.

Friends remember the teenager as a shy schoolboy who was determined to speak his mind and “had his own sense of right and wrong”.

"He produced a website with another schoolmate. It was pre-Facebook. It was like a community site. It didn’t really lift off, but it was a good idea.

"It was pretty much a social networking site before its time. You could log in and find out about local news."
..
..Those who befriended Manning when he arrived in Wales aged 13, after his parents divorced, suggested that he had always possessed some of the character traits which may have prompted the biggest-ever leaks of confidential information from the US government.

Mr Dyer told Channel 4 News that Manning had quickly established a reputation for computer expertise at his West Wales comprehensive.
..
He said: “He's always had this sense that 'I'm going to right a big wrong'. He was like that at school.

Mr Dyer insisted that Manning never meant any harm but was simply determined to stand his own ground.

"He has his own sense of what is right or wrong,” he added. “It’s not directed against another person in particular. He's certainly not malicious in any of his actions."

This portrait of Manning doesn't really fit the Lady Ga Ga narrative pushed when the story initially broke. Will his early friends stand by and not respond to the "Manning is treasonous" talk thrown around the punditsphere? I find the differing reactions to the event so far very interesting. The calls for Assange's arrest, execution(Very Christlike, Mike, by the way..), assassination, re-classification as terrorist, and yet, fascination with the cables they might have interest in...**Like this:

I would not want to be in Mr. Assange's shoes right now. Assange gave an interview to Forbes earlier this month. Wikileaks is supposed to be unveiling a major U.S. banking scandal in early 2011, consisting of thousands of documents obtained from a major U.S. financial firm (Goldman Sachs ??? Those are some documents I wouldn't mind seeing). **

Ron Paul, though, gets it right.. "In a free society we're supposed to know the truth," Paul said. "In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it."

I can't attribute this yet, but something I picked up this week's readings was this: If the government can know all of your secrets and peer into so many aspects of your private life, why shouldn't they be held by the same standard? Do not forget, they indeed work for us; not us for them. Whether or not you agree with Bradley Manning's actions, it does sound like he stands behind his convictions and probably hasn't changed his mind about what he has brought about. This story becomes more compelling with each passing day..