Pentagon 'hunting Wikileaks founder over Iraq video'
Quote:According to The Daily Beast website, US officials want to find Julian Assange, who they believe may be in possession of documents leaked by Bradley Manning, 22, a soldier who was detained in Baghdad a week ago.
Manning was detained in connection with the leak of a military video that was provided to Wikileaks and showed Apache helicopters gunning down unarmed men in Iraq, including two journalists. The intelligence specialist is now being held in Kuwait but has not been charged.
The US State Department is studying hard drives from the computers Manning allegedly used to download 260,000 classified diplomatic cables and reports relating to leaders and governments in the Middle East.
Pentagon officials told The Daily Beast they were seeking "co-operation" from Australian-born Mr Assange and it was unclear what they could do to stop further publication even if they found him.
Mr Assange works from different countries, including Iceland and Sweden, and his whereabouts is currently unknown.
In a posting on Twitter, Wikileaks said suggestions it had 260,000 classified cables were "as far as we can tell, incorrect."
It added: "Any signs of unacceptable behaviour by the Pentagon or its agents towards this press will be viewed dimly."
RE: Pentagon 'hunting Wikileaks founder over Iraq video'
I smell a psy-op...
Why do I get the feeling this whole situation was instigated in order to create acquiescence of the masses to more government intervention on the web?
John Young of cryptome has some interesting thoughts about wikileaks & Bradley Manning, and I have a lot of respect and admiration for cryptome.
I think he hit the nail on the head when he says that there need to be hundreds or thousands of wikileaks type places out there, and it's dangerous to only have one or two. I think the the US Gvt heard him loud and clear, and has set them up...
Wikileaks security and confidentiality of sources is likely sufficient for threats other than national-defense-grade attacks such as NSA is capable of launching on behalf of the US or its allies. Sweden among other nations have the similar capability should Wikileaks pose a national security threat. It is certain that NSA covertly tracks everything Wikileaks does but will not reveal that activity in order to protect means and methods. It is also certain that Wikileaks will be stress-tested to determine its capabilities, reconnaissance by fire.
None of this should deter ordinary leakers of commercial or personal information so Wikileaks will do just fine so long as it does only that, give or take a lawsuit or two. It may continue to get low to middle grade national defense material to remain on the watch list, to provide war gaming opportunities for trainees and grist for budgeteers.
Are the alleged 260,000 State Department TS/SCI cables genuine or baited disinfo? If Wikileaks is sitting on them rather having already widely distributed them, Bradley Manning will have done his duty to arrange a suicide pact.
Some of Manning's comments about compsec at his station were intending to be misleading or he does not know the extent of security measures for TC/SCI info -- which are not likely to be disclosed to personnel like him. Instead he is told sufficient to convince him he is knowledgeable and highly trusted, but not so, trust of humans is never sufficien. Humans are the first to fail and easiest to fool. If he copied files to a CD as claimed that process was registered without his awareness. Systems handling TS/SCI are never lax, despite appearances. Zeroizing does not wipe simultaneous back-ups and back-ups of back-ups elsewhere. Adrian Lamo (and Kevin Poulsen) surely knew this, suspected a trap, and led to his ratting and cooking up a cover story. Lamo expects a reward commensurate with Poulsen's beyond facetime, or as he japes of Manning, a book deal.
Was, is, Wikileaks witting too? Could be. The celebrity-ex-con-hacker -- info-spy-turned-info-hero -- back-scratching looks mutually rewarding depending on how it is perceived by the Knight Foundation and backers ready to shed taxes and govs eager to pay for self-dealing humint. Admirable dramatics, international level.
You may have read in the media (the Guardian, for example) that Cryptome.org has claimed WikiLeaks.org is a 'C.I.A. front'. This comes from a quote by John Young of Cryptome in an email from 2007 and Cryptome says the reporting of this is 'lacking context'.
Cryptome are also saying this:
'Characterisitcally, none of the authoritative ignoramouses quoting Young to smear Wikileaks talked to Young to get an update, haven't studied much Wikileaks material beyond the headlines, and would not stoop to the hard-labor of reading Cryptome. Cryptome attacked the Mother Jones smear on 8 April:
"The smears of Wikileaks are becoming excessive. Wayne Madsen has led the charge, now others are joining the nastiness. Mother Jones, of all muckracking mags which should know better, has published a particularly offensive smear of Julian Assange, cherry-picking remarks from those interviewed who surely said more than the article conveys."
'Cryptome spoke with Julian Assange by telephone on 11 April to offer support against the attacks on him and Wikileaks for releasing the Reuters staff murder video. In several recent interviews (one yesterday) Cryptome has stated Wikileaks is an exemplary success at getting banned information to the public and deserves wide emulation, with hundreds of sites needed to do what it does and to help guard against its smear and shutdown as a singular target. Also, that there are dozens if not hundreds of web sites providing information not available through self-anointed "reputable" media. The outrage Wikileaks has provoked indicates it is doing exactly what needs to [be] done to demolish the chokepoints of managed information flow by authoritative sources -- government, commerce, educational, religious, individual -- who peddle bombastic "context," "broader views," "verification," "authentication," "reputability," and the current favorite, "sources not authorized to speak" a comical variation on the spy's "if I told you what I know I would have to kill you," then spill gutloads of trivia...'
There is a highly recommended audio interview with John Young, 13 April 2010, which can be downloaded from The Corbett Report - Open Source Intelligence News (it is interview #152): 'The founder of Cryptome.org and veteran publisher of suppressed documents joins us to discuss what can be learned from the Wikileaks phenomenon, including the ways that information leaks can themselves be manipulated. We also discuss corporate complicity in government surveillance of the internet.'
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