After one thousand and 100 days in jail in pretrial detention, 22 charges, facing life – Today the verdict in the Bradley Manning case will be announced.  The verdict is expected at Tuesday, July 30th at 1PM ET. Manning of course is the man behind the biggest national security leak in history.  Through a connection to the WikiLeaks site, Manning’s first leaks hit the public in April 2010 with the video “Collateral Murder”.  The video created much controversy as it showed footage from an American Apache during a confrontation in Iraq.  The reaction to the attack recorded on the video was big news, as it showed the killing of 12 people, including two reported news personnel.   Manning further admitted – confessed that it was he that was responsible for leaking some 700,000 pieces of classified information, including diplomatic cables and military information through Wikileaks and out on the web.

So after much delay, and after a plea of guilty from Manning to releasing classified information, and unauthorized access, this is the day we find out what the judge will rule.  There’s a number of ways his sentence could play out, but he faces a maximum if convicted on all charges of life in prison plus 54 years.  Among those charges is one for aiding the enemy, which could have meant the death penalty, a path that was not pursued by the prosecution.   The argument goes that the documents were leaked out to the enemy, therefore to Al-Qaeda and that Manning was fully aware that the public release meant that this would eventually happen.  Being fully aware of this the prosecution argues, makes Manning complicit with the scope of the damage that came with the release, knowing the danger involved.  The defense for Manning has taken the whistleblower path, painting Manning as an idealist intent on revealing secrets to the public that he felt they should know about.

The court martial has been going on since June.  The prosecution presented the testimony of over 80 witnesses.  The lineup included a number of Manning’s immediate superiors as well as the testimony of forensic investigators.  Manning’s defense case lasted under a week, and called on the testimony of just ten witnesses.

Completely inaccurate – There was no Tom Cruise moment.

The first step is the verdict, and the sentencing will follow thereafter, so the punishment will be unknown for a little while.  Needless to say, there are elements in the public that are fairly split over this trial.  Clearly there are those that look at this as a cut and dry case where he violated the law and should be subject to every ramification of his actions.  There are also those that feel Manning did a service, exposing those things that people didn’t know about how the government conducts things, how the military executes its war operations, how the government keeps tabs on foreign countries, people and more.  It would not be outside the realm of realistic responses that very activist groups will retaliate or voice their displeasure with the outcome of this case in some fashion. The specter of this case carries relative hints and is now intertwined in the public’s mind to the continuing story of Edward Snowden and the NSA leak case.  These are different than regular hacking crimes, they involve military intelligence leaks and the outcome will be certainly be watched and scrutinized due to the sensitive nature of national security.