Overclassification

Imprisoned US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning - formerly known as Bradley - was on Wednesday honored in absentia for revelations of US war crimes. Manning was awarded the 2014 Sam Adams Prize for Integrity in Intelligence at a ceremony held by the Oxford University's prestigious Oxford Union Society. The event included a video address by Edward Snowden, last year’s Sam Adams Award winner, who praised Manning for bringing to spotlight a very important issue of “over-classification” – unjustified withholding from the public of information that’s not related to national security. “In the last year the White House told us that 95 million records have been created classified and withheld from the public in the year 2012. That’s more than any other year on record and shows a trend where the government is withholding more secrets than ever,” Snowden said.