Bradley Manning, now legally known as Chelsea Manning–the US soldier convicted of leaking thousands of pages of US secret documents to the Wikileaks website–is now tweeting from jail.
On April 3, Manning began tweeting from jail through an intermediary by telephoning messages to communications firm Fitzgibbon Media. Only two days later, the new Chelsea Manning account had already garnered over 30,000 followers.
Using a pencil drawing of herself Friday as a profile photo, Manning tweeted her hello to the world.
This is my new twitter account =P
— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) April 3, 2015
In another tweet, Manning claimed that the account would not be a “one-way street/conversation” and hoped to interact with others as much as possible.
The former US Army solder also took the time to thank some supporters. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, Amnesty International, and the activist group “Save Manning” all came in for a mention.
Manning was convicted in 2013 under the Espionage Act and could have received the death penalty for aiding the enemy. Manning’s sentence, though, ended up being 35 years at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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