Or at least commute my sentence
The Short Version
President Obama pardoned 64 and commuted the sentences of over 200 people yesterday in one of the largest groups of commutations by any president. Included in this list was Chelsea Manning, the transgender former Army analyst convicted of leaking top secret material to WikiLeaks in 2009 and former Marine general James E. Cartwright who plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI. Many people are upset by Ms. Manning’s sentence commutation while others are wondering if this may open the door for prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Matters Of Distinction
Right off the bat, we need to make a couple of points clear. A presidential pardon largely removes one’s crime and its effects. All rights are restored and the legal record of the conviction is expunged. Commuting a sentence, however, does not remove the conviction nor many of the penalties related to that conviction. All commuting a sentence does is let a person out of jail sooner. They are still subject to reporting laws, may not regain the right to vote, and cannot be considered for any form of federal employment. All pardons and commutations are permanent and cannot be undone.
A Little More Detail
President Obama had already surpassed the record for the number of people he has pardoned or for whom he has commuted sentences. Mr. Obama has long considered the imprisonment of non-violent drug offenders to be a matter of injustice and the majority of his pardons and commutations have been focused toward releasing non-violent drug offenders from jail. Not a lot has been written or said about any of these actions, though they’ve been ongoing for quite a while.
What got everyone’s attention yesterday was the commutation of the 45-year sentence given to Chelsea Manning. Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan called the act “just outrageous,” saying that ” “Chelsea Manning’s treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation’s most sensitive secrets.” Ms. Manning, who was known as Bradley at the time of arrest, has presented some interesting problems for the federal prison system, however. Being held in the men’s facility at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary subjected Ms. Manning to severe abuse and mistreatment from other prisoners. At the same time, the system was unable to provide the transitional medical care Ms. Manning needed. She had attempted suicide twice in the past year.
Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing Ms. Manning, said that Obama’s action could “quite literally save Chelsea’s life.”
In addition to Ms. Manning and General Cartwright, President Obama pardoned San Francisco Giants Hall of Famer Willie McCovey and hotelier Ian Schrager, both of whom were convicted of tax evasion, as well as commuting the sentence of Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera, an ultranationalist who, at age 74, is no longer considered a threat and would have otherwise likely died in prison.
The White House also announced that several more pardons and commutations would be announced on Thursday, the last day of President Obama’s administration. However, most of those will, again, be centered around drug offenders and no “big names” are expected.
Not For Everyone
What’s worth noting is who is not on any of the lists for pardons or sentence commutation. Edward Snowden, who, like Manning, leaked top-secret information to WikiLeaks, is not on the list. The White House has said that Snowden has not applied for clemency.
Also missing from the list is Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first-degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, has widely been considered to have been convicted unjustly. Yesterday, James Reynolds, the federal prosecutor responsible for Peltier’s conviction, published a letter in the Chicago Tribune urging Peltier’s release saying “The government has gotten almost 41 years, and 41 pounds of flesh; Peltier is old and sick, and in my opinion, any more time served would be vindictive.” However, the White House has not responded on the matter.
There is also some speculation as to whether Ms. Manning’s clemency opens the door for some action against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. However, again, there is no official word from the Justice Department regarding those rumors. Given the timing and transition about to take place, it is unlikely that the Justice Department would initiate any new activity that would require completion by the new administration.
The CIA’s New Rules
The things they want you to know
The Short Version
The Central Intelligence Agency released a new set of rules and guidelines yesterday that detail exactly what kinds of information they are allowed to collect on American citizens and how long they are allowed to keep it. This is the first time the agency has published the full set of rules without redactions. The rules have been updated for contemporary digital information sources.
A Little More Detail
We all want to know when the CIA is gathering information on us, don’t we? In fact, the agency is typically focused on foreign interests rather than domestic. Domestic issues are the responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, there are instances, such as when a US citizen might be responsible for passing protected or top secret information to a foreign source, when the CIA is allowed to collect data and analyze that data over a period of time.
The whole issue of what the CIA collects and why came to a head back in 2013 when Edward Snowden leaked information showing that the National Security Administration had been collecting and storing communications data on Americans without their knowledge or permission. That upset a lot of people and as a result, Congress passed a resolution requiring the intelligence agencies to develop new rules within two years.
What was released yesterday was the CIA’s response to that requirement and the changes are significant. The last time the rules were updated was 1982, long before the Internet or cell phones or Facebook gave us ways of communicating internationally in real time. One of the big issues is how long the agency can hold on to information for analysis and with whom that information can be shared, something that is an especially sensitive issue for civil rights advocates.
Unlike the 1982 rules, which were released with heavy redactions, the new rules were published in whole and are completely open to the world. A summary of the rules can be found here while the full detail of all the rules can found here.
What All Is Covered
We should probably note first that these rules can be changed at any time for pretty much any reason and that the public does not have to be notified of those changes. Also, the changes do not cover covert operations or special assignments authorized by the Department of Justice or the Attorney General. That being said, here are some of the major topics covered under the new rules:
Of course, the incoming administration could change, adjust, or eliminate any of these rules, but doing so would largely be seen as undermining the public’s faith in the agency.
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