By Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 5:51pm
Recent news reports suggest that Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of leaking government files to Wikileaks, is being held by our government — alone, often naked, in a small isolation cell for months at a time as he awaits legal proceedings to commence against him. Many Americans are appalled by the thought of this kind of treatment. While it appears these confinement conditions serve no purpose other than to degrade Pfc. Manning and break his spirit, they provide an important opportunity for the nation to reflect on the deeply damaging impact of solitary confinement.
Today, a court unsealed three motions filed by the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last month on behalf of Birgitta Jonsdottir, the Icelandic parliamentarian whose Twitter account records were targeted by the government in connection with its investigation related to WikiLeaks.
A public hearing on the motions is set for February 15 in Alexandria, Virginia. One of the motions seeks to overturn a federal court order requiring Twitter to turn over the private records of some of its users. The second filing seeks to unseal court records concerning the government's attempts to collect these kinds of private records from Twitter and other companies. The third motion was to unseal the original two motions and the hearing, which were initially sealed by the court.
