The Snowden affair, which captured the attention of the world’s media, somewhat overshadowed another no less important story also linked to the creation of a global system of total surveillance and suppression by the US administration – the case of WikiLeaks informant Bradley E Manning. Yet at the end of July, a military court in Fort Meade, Maryland, acquitted him of the most serious charge. In August, the court removed a few more of the charges against Manning, such as espionage, theft, computer fraud and so on. As a result, the maximum term of imprisonment the defendant could be sentenced to was reduced from 136 years to 90 years…