Chelsea Manning, formerly known as intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, convicted of leaking national security secrets, will have a hearing Aug. 18, which may lead to a punishment of solitary confinement if she is found guilty.
Manning, in 2013, plead guilty to charges of espionage and other offenses for leaking war logs, diplomatic cables and battlefield video to Wikileaks in 2010, reported the Toronto Star. She is serving a 35-year sentence for that crime, and now is accused of having copies of Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan, having expired toothpaste, disorderly conduct for sweeping food onto the floor and other violations.
"Chelsea is at risk of losing various support networks simply because she had an expired tube of toothpaste, the Vanity Fair magazine that featured Caitlyn Jenner and requested a lawyer when she felt she was being accused of misconduct," ACLU attorney Chase Strangio told BuzzFeed News.
Her attorney, Nancy Hollander, revealed the hearing at Fort Leavenworth will be closed, even though Manning asked that it be open to the public.
"Frankly, it looks to me like harassment," said Hollander of the prison charges, noting that charges like this are common in the military, but are extreme in this case, since the maximum penalty is indefinite solitary confinement, according to USA Today.
"It is not uncommon in prisons to have charges that to the rest of us seem to be absurd," said Hollander. "Prisons are very controlled environments and they try to keep them very controlled and, sometimes in that control, they really go too far and I think that this is going too far."
Hollander was particularly troubled by the reading materials confiscated from Manning: a novel about transgender issues, the books "Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy — The Many Faces of Anonymous" and "I Am Malala," an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine containing an interview with Manning, the U.S. Senate report on CIA torture and a few other things to read.
"There is certainly no security risk, and that could impinge on her free speech rights," she said.
If placed into solitary confinement, Manning, who is active on Twitter and a columnist for The Guardian, could be silenced indefinitely.
