Chelsea Manning, Longest Held Whistleblower in US History, Goes Free

Published: May 17, 2017, 4 a.m.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker is joined by Noelle Hanrahan, executive director of Prison Radio; Jeremy Kuzmarov, a professor of American history at the University of Tulsa; and by Gerry Condon, a member of the board of directors of Veterans for Peace.

Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower who was convicted of espionage for sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks revealing U.S. operations in Iraq, will be released today, after her sentence was greatly reduced by President Obama at the end of his term. Who is Manning? How important were the leaks that she gave to WikiLeaks? And what was behind the decision of Obama to allow her an early release despite being sentenced to 35 years in prison?

tags: chelseamanning, whistleblower, obama, iraq, wikileaks