Somebody Likes Bradley Manning!

According to Lauren Indvik’s post to Mashable last night, Bradley Manning has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  This should not be entirely surprising, since WikiLeaks received an institutional nomination last year.  Indivk took the trouble to provide a few words about the nominating process:

The names of 191 individuals and 43 organizations were submitted to the Norweigan [sic] Nobel Committee for consideration. Every year, the five-member Committee sends out thousands of letters to qualified individuals — lawmakers, university professors and other figures involved in the public sphere — calling for nominations. The lists of nominees are kept secret for 50 years, but some voting individuals choose to announce their nominations publicly.

This seems as good a process as any.  Lawmakers tend to have ideological agendas, but there seems to be plenty of room for other opinions.  The irony is that how the Nobel Committee makes a decision about Manning will probably have a lot to do with how his trial proceeds.  In other words the very government that has chosen to prosecute him may become a major data source when the Nobel Committee ponders what decision to make.