On June 1, 2013, I joined a thousand people on a march through Fort Meade, Maryland calling for Chelsea Manning’s release. Manning, a former soldier in the US army, was scheduled to be court martialed for passing US war logs and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. The collection of documents painted a shocking portrait of US empire and the brutal realities of its wars.

At the end of the march, we hung “Nobel Prizes” for Manning on the gates of the military base where she would soon go on trial. The symbolic gesture stemmed from tongue-in-cheek calls for Barack Obama to “give” his Nobel Peace Prize to Chelsea Manning. It nonetheless seemed like a fitting gesture. Manning’s intent was to spark a debate on US foreign policy by exposing its dark truths. Instead she was swept up in a larger Obama-era crackdown on whistleblowers. While the powerful that committed heinous crimes went largely unpunished, those who dared expose them, like Manning, were thrown in jail.

Manning had already pled guilty to charges carrying twenty years in prison. It wasn’t enough for prosecutors. The military went ahead with a court martial that alleged she had violated the Espionage Act and aided the enemy. They sought a life sentence. A military judge acquitted Manning of aiding the enemy, but found her guilty under the Espionage Act. She received an unprecedented thirty-five-year prison sentence.