 Yeah, good morning. I hope you are up and running and mentally online This next stroke is something that touches my heart very deep. Sorry for that. It is about a person who who followed her heart in two ways one is Realizing being transgender the other one has political influences and leaking documents and Taking all the risks Paying a very high price and she did what she had to do so this talk is about her and It's part of a term our panel today concerns an honorary member of the CCC Who is imprisoned right now by the US military at in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas? Her name is Chelsea Manning She's a young trans u.s. Army whistleblower convicted to 35 years in prison in the summer of 2013 for disclosing documents to a media organization Many of the victims of crimes and wrongdoing revealed in the documents that Manning disclosed are not members of a Western electorate Her revelations do not affect the bottom lines of Silicon Valley tech firms But they created the age that we live in and had impact from Tunisia to Berlin Despite however effective u.s. Propaganda has been concerning Manning and it has been very effective The US Department of Defense's own comprehensive review of every single document released by her determined the disclosures to be low to moderate risk The allegations that she dumped documents Irresponsibly is false She was convicted under the espionage and the computer fraud abuse acts for portions of 240 documents a significant portion of those are unclassified Over half a million u.s. Government employees and federal contractors had access to the documents that Manning released One of the documents that put Manning away in prison for 35 years relates to malaria updates in Kingston, Jamaica Four years later. No one has been harmed Her releases revealed or confirmed mass civilian casualties by us forces in Afghanistan us complicity in the torture of detainees by Iraqi security forces the Existence of more children than we knew being held An imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp the training of death squads in Bangladesh by the UK and so much more Manning trusted us with her life when she appealed to the public conscience and she also created her own hope Our own lives. I believe depend on the hope that we create for her I'm very honored today to be able to discuss her to pending legal matters With her attorneys and they're gonna come up on Skype now hopefully Nancy Hollander who is currently Coming back to us is a prominent American criminal defense attorney who specializes in national security cases She represents prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay and has argued before the Supreme Court in the United States Ahmed Gapur is a renowned American law professor who specializes in the intersection of technology and national security He directs a litigation clinic at UC Hastings that addresses Constitutional issues that arise from espionage counter-terrorism and computer hacking cases Gapur is also the attorney to the imprisoned American journalist Barrett Brown currently awaiting sentencing in Texas January 22nd. Everyone should make sure to show their support Chase Stronzio is a staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT and AIDS project He specializes in the litigation of incarcerated trans people like Chelsea Manning I am I see that Nancy is is having a bit of a technical difficulty. So Ahmed. I'm gonna actually Chase, I'm gonna actually ask you can you explain what it means to say that Manning is trans and that she's suing the Department of Defense To get adequate medical treatment So we can't hear you. We can't hear you. So let's figure out what's going on with that Can you hear us? Oh God I That's Lassos, I Look, I'll show you this. It's called awesome Skype. Can you say something? Can you say something now? Can you say something please? Thank God Can you hear Chase? I can hear Chase Chase. Please. Tell us what does it mean when Manning says that she's a trans She's trans and that she's suing the Department of Defense from adequate medical care So Chelsea has been in her entire life It means that even though she was assigned the sex of male at birth that she has been always a female and that She has a female gender identity and the incongruence between her male Assign sex at birth and her female gender identity has caused her significant distress and continues to cause her significant distress and the condition the medical condition that she has been diagnosed with is called gender dysphoria and Even though this is a widely recognized medical condition with accepted standards of care the military has continued and Persist on not recognizing that Chelsea's need for treatment now the military first diagnosed her with gender dysphoria in 2010 and has since diagnosed her over seven times with gender dysphoria so when the day after she was sentenced and she came out publicly as transgender and Indicated that she would be requesting treatment for gender dysphoria Even though this was her first big public announcement about this the military had known for over three years that she was transgender Um, sorry some distractions here, but she She so so when she arrived at Fort Leavenworth in in Kansas The first thing she did was request treatment for gender dysphoria and that included for her access to hormone therapy to bring her body into alignment with her female gender and Access to the ability to grow her hair and and dress and and groom in accordance with female grooming standards Now the military from that day forward took the position that they would not treat her gender dysphoria Despite the fact that courts in the United States have continually held that failure to treat gender dysphoria is a violation of The right of prisoners to be free from cruel and unusual punishment It was clear from the start that the military was going to take a position one that we consider to be unconstitutional That they would not provide Chelsea with treatment even though they knew for you know At this point over four years that she had this medical condition and she Continued to fight for her treatment the first thing she did when she arrived at Leavenworth is asked for treatment We were in touch with her from the from the very beginning upon her arrival She filed grievances. She did everything in her power to try to get the treatment initiated something that she considered to be central to her survival while she served her 35 year sentence and something that you know In her words was the single most important thing to her even more so than her appeal beginning from the day she was sentenced and she Continued to fight for it and when it was clear that the military was not going to budge They were not going to take her medical condition seriously She reached out to the ACLU and we decided that we would need to formally represent her in a lawsuit against the Department of Defense So we you know Chelsea initiated the the contact and we began the preparation to file a lawsuit and we are now suing the Department of Defense including officials from Hegel to the That the individuals who are administering for medical care at Fort Leavenworth Requesting that she be provided with medically necessary treatment in accordance with the the Army's obligation under the Constitution Can you can you help educate? Can you help educate us? How does Manning wish to be represented? How does she wish to be referred to? Can you just help clarify that for the public because there seems to be a bit of confusion generally? Yeah, I think the most important thing from Chelsea's perspective And this has been true for a very long time is that she is a woman and and sort of recognizing that core part of identity Her identity which is as fundamental as anyone's gender is to them as a woman is absolutely critical to her survival I mean she's looking at being incarcerated now for decades potentially and She you know every time her picture or any likeness of her is presented in as male or anytime anyone refers to her by her former name or with male pronouns It's it's a further sort of erasure of who she is as at her core And I think I there was a lot of reports when she was During her her court martial about one of her greatest fears when she was arrested was that for the rest of Her life images of her as a boy would be circulated globally And that is absolutely something that just pains her and causes her so much distress And I think what we can do to honor her is continue to recognize her as the woman that she is and make sure that our narratives of her Centralized that part of her identity Thank you for telling us. Thank you for telling us that all right Ahmed you are going to help us to understand I just spent a month traveling through Spain with amnesty trying to raise awareness about Manning's trial The unfair nature of her trial the the prejudicial. Oh, thank you the the fact that she was convicted to 35 you 35 years in prison for Essentially leaking low-level battlefield reports that over half a million u.s. government employees had access to Talk to me about the use of the espionage act in political persecutions and Prosecutions in the United States generally speaking So I think thanks to begin with thanks for having us and I'm gonna try to talk as slow as possible just because Nancy See her trying to connect every once in a while and she'd kill me if I said something wrong But let me just let me just talk about what the espionage act is supposed to do in very broad terms The espionage act is supposed to punish folks for spying for the enemy for selling state secrets for personal gain For trying to undermine the democratic fabric that enables our way of life. Now I will pass it along to Nancy Oh We're so glad you're here Nancy Thank you Sorry something happened By a place that's that's fine. I meant was just talking to us generally about the espionage act and how it's used in political prosecutions Good It's supposed to be used for so now I'm handing it off to you, Nancy Well what it's supposed to be used for I don't know how far you got but it was obviously intended for spies It was written during World War one. Maybe Ahmed already told you that It was a bad law when it began and it's a worse law now The problem the main problem with the espionage act is not so much the act if you read it but the way the courts have interpreted it and the way the courts have interpreted it not just in Chelsea Manning's case but in many previous cases is That the crime is committed when one discloses intends to disclose National security information So it doesn't have to hurt the United States. It doesn't have to aid a foreign country It certainly doesn't have to aid an enemy It just is the act of disclosure So it becomes what we call a strict liability crime And there doesn't have to be any bad intent There are two problems with this going in two directions. Obviously, it means that anyone there is no Defense for public interest. There's no defense for Telling the public something the public needs to know So there's no way an insider Can ever disclose anything without getting caught up in this act If the government decides that it's a national security Issue or it discloses national security information. That's much broader than just classified information It's whatever the government decides at that time is national security information. And I want to give you an example That is just recently happened. There were five people from Guantanamo who were exchanged for a U.S. Prisoner We were told In the world that these particular five men who were supposedly members of the Taliban could never leave Guantanamo they were what's known as forever prisoners because national security would be harmed if they were ever released And then all of a sudden they're released and national security is okay So it's that's a moving target and you never know where it is. So the person Is caught up in that and that's what makes this Law so dangerous. It's so broad from both directions It's unconstitutional. It's a violation of free speech and We have to stop it. That's the bottom line on the espionage act Almey, is there anything you want to add on that? Well, um, I would just add just underscore the the potential for abuse here And and essentially the whole purpose of the laws is to be written in such a way that It doesn't allow the government to do exactly what Nancy is is saying that they're doing and and And the espionage act is not supposed to be used as as a vehicle for retaliation against whistleblowers Of course It doesn't stop there, right? The obama administration what what they've done is systematized the criminalization of whistleblowers and I don't say that merely because only About a dozen people in american history have been charged with espionage for leaking classified information And seven or eight of them under the brock obama administration Um, I say that because most recently the administration has brought them into the long war And what I mean by that is that the the obama administration has designated a new national security threat the insider threat And categorizing it as a threat Means that you now got a broad line of power to play around with and the same way you can cast a Wide net to find the next terror threat The uh, government will do the same to prevent the next disclosure to prevent the next public embarrassment And because we can't tail every government employee out there. We'll just put pressure on journalists and, um Lee and and generally transfer privacy and and transparency advocates Advocates and that's why there's a push uh to get congress to pass right legislation amending the espionage act and allowing the Defenses such as public accountability and necessity but as things stand um, we're basically screwed and The obama legacy will forever be known as the presidency of secrecy. I won't ask I want to talk to you about what kind of Recourse manning has I mean she's been convicted to 35 years. She's currently being held in a military prison in kansas What kind of recourse does she have at this point? Well, of course she can always ask for a pardon. We'll continue to always do that She has parole uh possibility in about I think it's now about six or seven years And of course we will do that but the main focus for me and for my partner vince ward and The lawyers and the students afmed students who are working with us and her detailed counsel is her appeal The the appeal is to the court of appeals for the army Then there's another appeal to the court of appeals to the forces And then there's an appeal to the us supreme court and then we start actually the habeas petition But our focus on first court Is to raise every issue espionage is only one of them that we believe has merit And we will be writing briefs. We're reading the transcript. This is the longest transcript in military history. So i'm told It's huge. It's 111 volumes each one is 330 pages So it is a huge record. It's going to take us time to get it all read all the exhibits some of it's classified Classified we have to go to washington to read But that's our real focus is to write the very best appeal To argue i'll be arguing this case to argue this case and convince the judges that chelsea did not receive a fair trial Which she clearly didn't because of the espionage act and because of a host of other reasons Do you have i mean what are some possible appellate issues other than the espionage act? Well, some of the obvious ones are the pretrial confinement issues um, the the u.n. Rapporteur Considered some of her pretrial confinement to actually rise to the level of torture. It was clearly Cruel and inhumane treatment the way she was treated at kwantico Excuse me and in kuwait There was one point where she was forced to stand naked at attention. There was no purpose to that Other than to demean her um She was put on suicide watch when she clearly was not a suicide Risk and the psychiatrists kept saying that but the prison did it. That's a big issue There's a speedy trial issue. Did it take too long to have her trial? This is a bigger issue actually in the military and the law is stronger for the defendant in the military Than it is in our federal courts and that's probably because people move around a lot in the military But there are some military laws that are Helpful to her in that argument and there are other issues. There was not she didn't have witnesses. She should have had um, the military gets to decide which witnesses Are necessary and relevant and the prosecution even gets to chime in on that which Finds somewhat absurd, but that's the way they do it in the military. So there were Lots of witnesses she didn't get to have That's a big issue. There are there were discovery issues There are issues of what was the value of What she took was it under a thousand dollars or over a thousand dollars and how did they value it and all of these things Added up to charges That added up to time. So we have a lot of issues Um and and others then we'll be deciding which ones are the ones that we want to include in our brief And that'll happen as we go along Ahmed tell me why did you You know what brought you to this case? Uh, you the uc pa your the litigation clinic that you direct at uc hastings is actually now working with the defense The appellate attorneys Tell me how you came to this case and why you think it's important Um, well, I came I came to the case obviously everybody knows about this case. Um, and uh, Nancy and I have worked together I can't say how long it would reveal how young I am but um for years and It really is a it's a great case for students because it's an appeal and we can really digest all the issues um, it's also uh The kind of case that encompasses everything that the clinic does and and the clinic at uc hastings um, basically It's meant to to focus on the future of security, which is technology in the future of technology Which is security and we see it the first real case to to encompass all that in the united states. I think is is chelsea's case um, the first real broad A dragnet type of investigation And um to to to to follow up on that is the wiki leaks investigation. Um, so hopefully we'll be doing some work on that too Um, I think this is probably one of the most important cases around right now period um for a vast number of reasons not only because of the the unconstitutionality the application of the espionage act um, but also because of the um, the sort of the sort of message that it was meant to send To folks like edwards snowden, you know and and luckily that message fell on deaf ears Chase I wanted to ask you, you know, nancy was talking about manning's pretrial treatment at quantico And in the public record there is examples of prison officials referring to her underwear that they just took from her as panties um homophobia certainly transphobia In your opinion, did manning being transgendered or did transphobia in general impact her court marshal and how so if it did? Well, I think first of all the the the mistreatment of detainees and prisoners by the united states government is certainly not limited to transgender individuals, but I think transgender individuals in custody do experience particular hardships in particular cruelty that I think manning herself was subjected to now Again, even though we didn't know publicly or most people didn't know that manning was transgender Until after her sentencing the military did know as far back as 2010 and did know through her entire court marshal And so I think this affected her in a number of ways the first of which was that she was forced to really Minimize a critical part of her identity for a long period of time that had incredible Challenges for her that created a significant amount of distress through the court marshal Which just impacted her ability to continue to be an advocate for herself Now that's not to say that she wasn't an incredible advocate and did not survive unbelievably horrific conditions But she did and then the other way is of course that the the military used that It is to to further dehumanize her and to mock her and to belittle her in what were already horrific conditions And I think this is something that transgender people in prison and you know outside of custody experience all the time And this was something that she'll see herself experience Throughout the horrible times that she was detained Particularly at quantico and I think what's important to remember is that you know she This part of her identity was so important and that she has taken on Unbelievable risk in continuing to fight for her fair treatment as a transgender person In a context in an environment where transgender people are not taken seriously and as she fights her appeal The fact that she is willing to sort of stand up for transgender people and put herself out there Is an incredible testament on top of everything else that she has done to the kind of person that she is I just want to interject here. I have never seen a more earnest and thoughtful and reasoned person Under that amount of stress. I mean, she's an extraordinary individual and she deserves every person's support I wanted to talk to you. I met about Your other client barrett brown barrett wasn't charged with the cfa a that sorry the computer fraud and abuse act Like manning but he was charged sort of similarly in the sense of with hacking statutes that sort of ended up being Part of a larger dragnet. Can you talk to me? First of all, what is the computer fraud and abuse act? So the computer fraud and abuse act is the federal anti hacking law Amongst other things the law criminalizes unauthorized access of the computer Of course, the law doesn't explain what without authorization means So initially the purpose while initially the purpose was to combat cyber terrorism, believe it or not Which is the hacking of computers of the federal government As the way of things go the criminal conduct covered by the statute has brought in significantly and so what we have now is a cfa or the computer fraud and abuse act where creative prosecutors Can take advantage of the confusion and bring criminal charges that aren't really about hacking a computer at all Um That essentially criminalized behavior that prosecutors don't like so for example Um, the government has claimed that violating a private agreement or corporate policy amounts to a hacking violate or a cfa violations In the manning case the government essentially argued that writing a script To do something efficiently was exceeding authorized access in this case the script or the program was We'll get um, and this shouldn't be the case so Of course, there's a there's a joke about the military being inefficient in there, but i'm not going to make it But compounding the problem is the sentencing issues with the computer fraud and abuse act because You can get anywhere the prosecutors can seek anywhere between five and ten in 20 years and even life Depending on the amount of damage or financial, uh loss that was caused Which of course is disastrous As for barrett's case, so barrett was not a hacker at all. He has absolutely no computer skills Everybody in the world knows that. Um, he was a journalist, uh, that happened to cover You know what one might call the accidental cyber cyber war between the u.s. Government and and anonymous Of course, there was no such war and there is no such group as anonymous It's just a collective as opposed to you know, like the taliban or something so by way of background At at the time of the, uh, conduct that was alleged. She'd found a collaborative web publication called project p.m Project p.m's purpose was to bring people together To conduct research on publicly available materials that were put forth into the public sphere by whistleblowers leakers hackers and so on Project p.m's reports came to focus on the military and intelligence contracting industry in december of 2011 About 5,000 emails from strapped for global intelligence were exfiltrated by Jeremy Hammond amongst others And by others i mean including the fbi because sabu was involved and he was an fbi informant who essentially ran Many of those operations, but that's a whole other story So the files contained revelations about close and inappropriate ties between the government security agencies and private, uh contractors The emails i should also mention are available now, um on wiki leaks So amongst the millions of strapped for files were data containing credit card Informations and other security codes part of the vast trove of the internal company documents that strapped for of course forgot to encrypt the credit card data was no interest to bear it because That's not really what he's into but it was of great interest to the government because in december of 2012 He was charged with 12 counts related to identity theft I should mention that the computer fraud and abuse act initially was called Something like the computer fraud and identity theft act or something it it it essentially Incorporated the the two statutes that come before it Um, and they were passed around the same time So it is a hacking violation that he was initially charged with He was charged with 12 counts related to identity theft for cutting and pasting a hyperlink that led to the uh um, the public website that contained a gzif file um Containing that the dump of the hack um Of course since then we've challenged the charges on grounds that linking to information That is already in the public sphere is nothing more than pure news gathering activity And that the government in essence was criminalizing journalism Two days after we filed our motion to dismiss the government On their own dismissed 11 out of the 12 charges And he will he he was to be sentenced a few days ago, but the judge has delayed sentencing for a month It's a very very long way to describe an even longer case has been going on forever In manning's case you you had someone who used w get to download 116 diplomatic cables And according i'm not a lawyer, but according to my observation in the trial the the judge appeared to It was difficult to sort of know exactly what her sort of legal thought was because she didn't produce what was called a special findings But from her pre-trial order, she appeared to sort of rule that it was because Manning exceeded her Violated her terms of service for the dod network that the department of defense network by using w get that she also violated her Security clearance and she there was an automated sort of process of using w get to download 116 cables It seems to me though that the government was trying to sort of fabricate a hacking charge where it didn't exist Is the cfa always used To prosecute hackers or to i'm sorry The act of hacking or is it used actually to prosecute publication or disclosure? I mean that's a that's a really Good question and the problem is it it all turns on the confusion so whenever the government has a statute or a law that contains a confusing term or A confusing sort of idea or deals with some sort of confusing or difficult or technical concept like computers They can get really creative and they can tell a judge. Well, you know, this thing called would get or we get or w get is really an automated process to exfiltrate information from a server and it's not it's just a way to Automate it's like a script that automates a task of go and collect something and come back And it's completely legal But you know when you put that kind of narrative in front of a judge That was born before can the idea of a computer ever existed You you get into situations where there's unfortunate Reliance just on on whatever the assertions are On the flip side and this isn't necessarily talking about the man in case but generally I mean we see these kind of things in all all types of cases dealing with hacking and and sort of technical crimes But also in the national security crimes with terrorism because you just call somebody, you know, my name's ahma That doesn't make me a terrorist But you know if you all of a sudden Parse the conversation I had with my parents where I said a whole bunch of stuff in arabic And then you put that for a judge and he said well judged these words in arabic or you know code And neither the judge or the prosecutor or the or the fbi understand what any of this stuff means The next thing you know is you've got a conviction and it's strange that you see these parallels with with the hacking cases I would I would like to give the audience a lot of time to ask questions So you should start lining up now. I just wanted to give you a heads up Because a lot of people have lots of questions about the manning trial and there's a lot of Things they need to to know about it. So go ahead and do that. I wanted to ask Chase the acl you actually pays for your representation of her and all the costs associated with her case against the department of defense Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Um, how can people support manning in her suit against the do d So I think one of the critical ways and you know, I'm saying the same thing over and over again here But one of the critical ways to support shelsey I think in general is to continue to tell her story publicly as much as possible and to do so Centralizing the fact that she is chelsea that she is a woman and is sort of part of her narrative because we really don't want that to Be lost so that's something that's just generally an important way to support her and sort of continue to give her the hope and the You know the optimism that she needs to continue to fight this for a long potentially a long time Now the other thing that people can do is to sort of organize campaigns and to continue to call to call on the department of defense And the new secretary of defense when when that person is confirmed To to provide chelsea with the treatment that she needs now this There's nothing stopping the do d and the officials at leavenworth from treating her They know that they should they know it's consistent with medical standards But it's essentially a political issue that they don't want to Give in to her need for treatment in part because people They don't think transgender people are legitimate and they don't take gender dysphoria seriously But also in part because they don't like chelsea and I think we need to continue to call on them And show that the public is going to continue to pressure them to provide her treatment. That is essentially a basic rudimentary treatment that is provided for all sorts of other conditions that would pose no cost or risk to the government But not to continue to withhold it simply because they don't take it seriously and they don't like chelsea And I think the public has a ton of power in this regard and not losing sight of that and continuing to call on the do d And on secretary of defense hagel or carter if carter is confirmed That's really going to be critical to her survival in the long term and we can't lose sight of that I Nancy I you know, I know that uh You I urge people to donate to manning to manning's legal defense fund I mean it it's very expensive to be uh prosecuted and convicted by the u.s. Government for espionage and computer fraud and abuse When you're a whistleblower and you can do that at chelsea manning dot org What can people do nancy to support manning during this appellate process whether it's by legally or financially or emotionally Oh, I agree with chase people can do all of those things we we work very hard to keep chelsea's case alive Uh, alexa you and I were just in spain for a week talking all over the country about chelsea amnesty international Made chelsea one of their main people for this year so that she received hundreds or maybe thousands of letters I was hoping there were enough letters that the prison just was overwhelmed with letters It for her and she needs she needs that support We need support obviously vince my partner vincent ward and I Are working on this case Really is starting in the next month or so practically full time and you know, we're private attorneys We can't we can't do this like the acou does for free So we need that support. This is a long case and we need to keep her case alive We need to keep reminding people that even though this is an appeal This is a a viable appeal. We have very important issues here We have issues that absolutely need to be heard by the court and chelsea needs to win And that's only going to happen If we can do our work and if people help keep this case alive around the world So that's what I encourage people to do chelsea manning.org is run by the support committee We don't have anything to do with it But they are the ones who support our work and support chelsea and make sure that she has enough money to She has newspaper articles that she can read You know, chelsea also works really hard and I don't want us to forget that she works with us on our appeal She works with chase On their case She writes regularly She's she works so hard sometimes that she's overwhelmed by the amount that we ask her to do and that the public asks her to do But it's also important for her to know that everyone is behind her Legally and morally and ethically and so I hope all of you will do that and continue to do that There's a question from number four Yeah, um, erkelder has now said that the civil rights act of 1964 That the prohibition of sex discrimination would also encompass discrimination based on gender identity Including transgender status. Do you think that will be any help to chelsea manning? that the civil rights act Now should apply Nancy, do you want to take that or does anyone want to take that or do you think chase should take that? Okay I mean, I don't I can't speak for the appeal. Although I imagine that it's probably not gonna help too much on the appeal It for purposes of her conditions of confinement case. Unfortunately Legally, it won't really Make a difference because the civil rights act won't apply to an 8th amendment claim But I think what is important about that shift from the federal government in recognizing that discrimination uh against transgender people amounts to sex discrimination for purposes of federal non-discrimination protections is that we're seeing a shift at least in sort of public understanding of the fact that it is wrong under our federal Laws at least to discriminate against people on the basis of their transgender status or their gender identity and expression So I think it shows a shift that is promising I do think generally speaking the 8th amendment has been clearly interpreted to apply to treatment for gender dysphoria So we should legally be in a very clear position. Of course, you know, the courts don't necessarily follow the law Um, when it comes to people who are disfavored and that's just the reality So I think again going back to the public support that's going to be critical just as much as the litigation is Chase you want to explain what the 8th amendment is to people who aren't americans So the 8th amendment to the united states Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment to people in in custody And and so it applies equally to military prisons and actually the uh, the military has more expansive protection So that will be relevant for purposes of the pre-trial confinement aspects of of chelsea's conditions case It won't be relevant for our case because we are filing in federal district court not in military court So the 8th amendment, uh, then the less expansive version of the 8th amendment will apply In our case, um, but that has been held to apply to medical treatment in addition to sort of physical treatment and other forms of Cruelty that are are posed on people in in custody in the united states And and it has been held almost universally by federal appellate courts to prohibit bands on treatment for gender dysphoria So that's something that we're hoping will be instrumental in forcing The court to and and then ultimately the dod to provide chelsea with the treatment that we that she needs now Hopefully it doesn't come to a court order and the government will will do the right thing before we reach A final resolution in court. So we're continuing to pressure them from all angles on that Thank you Number one, please Yeah, I was just wondering how many years do you think this will uh go Until it reaches maybe the supreme court maybe higher. So just how many years Do we you know that does this, you know, how many years are we looking forward to for the fight? This is a long fight. Um, and I can't tell you how many years I can tell you that it's more than one or two years. We have two appellate courts You know, the the process is we will file a brief sometime in 2015 Uh in the first court of appeals for them for the army Then the government will file a brief they're going to take a long time because they're going to argue that they have to read This whole transcript and that they haven't been doing anything over the last year Of course, we'll try to demand that they don't have as much time But then we get to write a third. Uh, there was a third brief Then the court sets it for an oral argument. We will argue before the court and then the court has to rule Uh, if we lose in that court or even if the government loses we can request that the court of appeals For the armed forces hear the case Although that's a discretionary appeal It's very likely that that court would take the appeal in this case because it's such an important case And again, there's a series of briefs written in that court Uh, and then if um, if the case is not resolved there Then it goes to supreme court again That's discretionary the supreme court can decide whether or not it wants to hear the case if we've lost Below we certainly will do everything we can to try to get this case before the supreme court But to answer your question, um, I can't tell you how many years, but I can tell you it's more than one more than two I have a follow-up question that is there a difference between the u.s. Army court of criminal appeals The first appellate court and the court of appeals for the armed forces in terms of what kinds of issues they'll consider Like is for example, is the higher military court for like matters of legal understanding Whereas the us army lower appeals court related to sort of like evidentiary issues or how the Is there any distinction between the two? I don't think so. Um, I think that it's just an appellate court If you lose in the first one you can go and ask that court to consider it Now in all these cases we are bound by the record that was made below That's the record we have Um, we can't really we can't add new facts We can we have that record and that's the record that that we have to rely on Which is the record that was made In the court below we can ask in some circumstances for a remand back to To the first court in some instances, but whether we're going to do that or not we haven't decided Great. Thank you. Number two, please So this is going to be a quiet personal question about jelsie So if you believe she doesn't want this answered, please don't answer But i'm gonna ask anyway You said that she does not get the treatment she needs During her arrest Did she actually have any of these treatment before her arrest? Or is that something that just wasn't possible while in service? I'm assuming this is a question about treatment for for gender dysphoria. Um She so she uh, did not you know seek out treatment prior to her arrest You know in central part because uh, the united states military continues to Bar service by transgender individuals and in fact criminalizes under the The the military code of criminal justice You know any cross gender expressions, which would include all treatment for gender dysphoria So if she had sought treatment while she was in uh in the military She you know, she faced not only discharge but also criminal Liability and so her ability to come to terms with her transgender identity was greatly diminished by being in the service And and the ban on trans people serving openly and that's something that You know has it has affected her and continues to affect so many other people who are serving in the united states military who are transgender Thanks Are there any questions from from the net? Yes, there are some questions The first one is referring to discrimination of transgender people Did the support for jelsie manning change after her coming out as a female? You know I'm just a meds picture changed. Yes. I'm sorry about that Um, so, you know, nancy may know more about the that how the support has changed over time um, I think that uh, one thing that did happen is that the lgbt community became more supportive of chelsea I think after she came out as transgender and that was sort of part of her public narrative And I think it's unfortunate actually that the lgbt community wasn't more supportive during her court marshal and that You know, she was an out gay person during that time and she Uh, you know was also someone who you know was a critically important person for the for the united states and for the entire world So I think it's a shame that the lgbt community didn't step up to be a real true advocate for her until after she came out as transgender But I do think that's a community where we saw increased support for her And I think um, there's been some misunderstanding about her female identity from her supporters And that's something to continue to sort of centralize in her narrative But I do think overall we've seen you know consistent support for chelsea and hopefully that support will only grow over time I want to just add something here from the court record that it was really interesting Now that the you've you filed this department of the suit against the department of defense a lot of sort of Puzzle pieces are fitting together from the court marshal like for example One of the documents found in manning's dorm sort of her military dorm It was called a chew in iraq was a scholarly treaties on On written by an us army. Sorry us air force doctor. It was a study that Was called a flight into hyper masculinity and in this particular study this us army air force doctor Argued that the proportion of transgender people was higher in the military than in the general population Because trans women who identify as women but were assigned male at birth Actually will join the military to try to deal with their experience with gender dysphoria Um, so there's all these kinds of when you say that manning wasn't treated for it She was diagnosed with it before her arrest though Yeah, that is correct and she was diagnosed repeatedly every single time she saw a medical professional in the military Right And did she find herself trying to express her femininity? While she was in iraq or during that time period Yeah, she did and I think you know, there's different ways to sort of look back on that time She talks a lot about a leaf. She took while she was deployed in iraq and which time was the first time She really publicly lived as a woman and sort of outwardly expressed her gender as such But I think as you know, it's important to also recognize all the way She she expressed her female identity that weren't sort of outwardly recognized as being Feminine or female and sort of understanding her condition And also it can't be sort of understated the extent to which she was, you know In a feminine presenting person. She was a gender non-conforming person She was always sort of identified and sort of recognized as such and she also, you know Existed under don't ask don't tell she she was someone who was constantly living under these conditions in the military And she saw out ways to to express that and come to terms with who she is as a woman as a transgender person And so that included things like dressing as a as a woman when she was on leave And sort of trying to consolidate her identity But also doing extensive research trying to understand her condition trying to figure out ways that she would be able to get treatment Either, you know before she left the military or after and that is something that is very much there in the record and very much part of her story And it shows how much the military was aware of her need for treatment for a very long period of time I have a question from the european perspective to you guys What can we Do for chelsea? I mean you told from from the american perspective that Writing to the military. Um, okay donating. That's something we can do But um, what can we do? from here to support Your case to support chelsea but there You can continue to talk about the case as you are now You can continue to educate people about the case about the problems That the whistleblowers have in the united states that it's it's virtually impossible now for anyone who Has access to any information that the u.s. Government considers to be national security To bring this to the public if in fact that person finds human rights abuses as chelsea did if that person finds That the government is misusing the classification process, you know it it's a It's illegal to classify evidence in the united states for the purpose of Avoiding embarrassment of the government. It's right in the executive order from the president that it cannot be used To avoid embarrassment and yet That is how it's used and we saw that in the torture report obviously and There's not one there's a there's an actual process That someone who has access to classified information that that person believes shouldn't be classified There's a process within the law to go up the chain Um and say this shouldn't be classified and it's never been successful ever And that that's part of the problem So making this public continuing to make it public that people have to be treated fairly that Chelsea needs to be treated fairly in prison that chelsea didn't have a fair trial all of that is supportive of her as We go forward in this appeal the world needs to keep this case in focus Because it's so important if we have a government in the united states that can protect its secrets We can't have a free society and that's just the bottom line and everyone in the world needs to be concerned about that Well, thank you very much So we have five minutes and we have two more Two questions. Yeah, um number four, please I would like each and Everyone I mean nancy ahmet and chase to answer me this truthfully and honestly honestly just with yes or no And this is a personal question question After all of what you have witnessed Do you still believe in justice? Okay, i'm the oldest and i'm gonna go first You are named first Look how young they are both of them. Um So I believe that there can be justice. I mean, I certainly believe in justice. I believe That I want justice for all people everywhere. Do I believe that there can be justice? Anywhere certainly in the united states, I'm not so sure I've been a criminal defense lawyer for over 35 years. I've seen Uh a system that I did believe in that I do believe is on paper A really good system. I believe that the jury trial system is a good system I believe our system that requires confrontation Of witnesses, which is different than the european system is a really good system But uh, I've seen too much now and i'm not sure that most that people who have issues Uh gender issues national security issues Uh anyone who's muslim in the united states anyone who is a minority in the united states I'm not sure any of those people get justice as the system exists today And that's that's very distressing I continue to work for it and I will continue to work for it and we just have to continue that struggle Because we're you know lawyers particularly have tremendous power and we have the power to create change And that's what we have to continue to do Is to use that power Thank you We have a very last question because we are running out of time. Um number two, please please keep short So it's somewhat related to the last one, but um, so you spend some time telling us about the espionage act and things like that that Chelsea mining was treated unfairly So and yet you're trying to help her through legal means again. So what makes you think it will work this time I don't have any choice. I mean what you got some other idea No, I don't but You know, I don't have any choice We have to rely on public the public the the court of public opinion is a very important court And there there have been cases in the u.s. Supreme court that have said the court of public opinion is important And that's why we're here and that's why we're talking to all of you But we have we have no choice. We have to go through the legal system And we that's what we'll do Maybe to have something else you can say to that Thank you very much. I want to thank you guys for Your time today. This has been really an awesome honor. So thanks a lot guys um I think it is um Fair enough to to thank you for you're awesome Thank you for for your work for for Chelsea And um, I think it is okay if we say oh All the energy and all the love to Chelsea Absolutely all the energy and all the love to Chelsea Thank you