On the day that Chelsea Manning was to be awarded in absentia the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence, supporters from Oxford and beyond gathered on Cornmarket for a couple of hours in the afternoon for a solidarity vigil.

With banners “Free Private Manning” and “Free Assange, Free Manning, End the Wars”, Free Manning stickers and postcards for the Private Manning Family Fund, six of us engaged with the passing Oxford crowds. There was a fair amount of interest from locals, students and tourists and some interesting conversations about Manning, Snowden, Assange, privacy, surveillance and endless war.

One man described how his best friend had spent 14 years in the military, including the SAS, and now struggles to live with the atrocities he committed under government orders. A student who’s researching privacy and the internet lamented the eagerness of people to give…