Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo & the WikiLeaks Affair

[h3rm35]

you're going to want to hit up the source article for audio... This absolutely reeks of an intelligence op perpetrated through the machinations of Wired, A wannabe low-level, previously convicted hacker, and the DoD, along with whatever intelligence agencies were involved, be it the DIA, CIA, or NSA... and even though it really doesn't get into it in the article, I suspect wikileaks involvement.
The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks
By Glenn Greenwald

*

Bradley Manning and a still from the Apache helicopter attack that appeared on WikiLeaks.

(updated below)

On June 6, Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter of Wired reported that a 22-year-old U.S. Army Private in Iraq, Bradley Manning, had been detained after he "boasted" in an Internet chat -- with convicted computer hacker Adrian Lamo -- of leaking to WikiLeaks the now famous Apache Helicopter attack video, a yet-to-be-published video of a civilian-killing air attack in Afghanistan, and "hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records." Lamo, who holds himself out as a "journalist" and told Manning he was one, acted instead as government informant, notifying federal authorities of what Manning allegedly told him, and then proceeded to question Manning for days as he met with federal agents, leading to Manning's detention.

On June 10, former New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, writing in The Daily Beast, gave voice to anonymous "American officials" to announce that "Pentagon investigators" were trying "to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks [Julian Assange] for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security." Some news outlets used that report to declare that there was a "Pentagon manhunt" underway for Assange -- as though he's some sort of dangerous fugitive.

From the start, this whole story was quite strange for numerous reasons. In an attempt to obtain greater clarity about what really happened here, I've spent the last week reviewing everything I could related to this case and speaking with several of the key participants (including Lamo, with whom I had a one-hour interview last night that can be heard on the recorder below, and Poulsen, with whom I had a lengthy email exchange, which is published in full here). A definitive understanding of what really happened is virtually impossible to acquire, largely because almost everything that is known comes from a single, extremely untrustworthy source: Lamo himself. Compounding that is the fact that most of what came from Lamo has been filtered through a single journalist -- Poulsen -- who has a long and strange history with Lamo, who continues to possess but not disclose key evidence, and who has been only marginally transparent about what actually happened here (I say that as someone who admires Poulsen's work as Editor of Wired's Threat Level blog).

Reviewing everything that is known ultimately raises more questions than it answers. Below is my perspective on what happened here. But there is one fact to keep in mind at the outset. In 2008, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center prepared a classified report (ironically leaked to and published by WikiLeaks) which -- as the NYT put it -- placed WikiLeaks on "the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States." That Report discussed ways to destroy WikiLeaks' reputation and efficacy, and emphasized creating the impression that leaking to it is unsafe (click image to enlarge):

In other words, exactly what the U.S. Government wanted to happen in order to destroy WikiLeaks has happened here: news reports that a key WikiLeaks source has been identified and arrested, followed by announcements from anonymous government officials that there is now a worldwide "manhunt" for its Editor-in-Chief. Even though WikiLeaks did absolutely nothing (either in this case or ever) to compromise the identity of its source, isn't it easy to see how these screeching media reports -- WikiLeaks source arrested; worldwide manhunt for WikiLeaks; major national security threat -- would cause a prospective leaker to WikiLeaks to think twice, at least: exactly as the Pentagon Report sought to achieve? And that Pentagon Report was from 2008, before the Apache Video was released; imagine how intensified is the Pentagon's desire to destroy WikiLeaks now. Combine that with what both the NYT and Newsweek recently realized is the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistle-blowers, and one can't overstate the caution that's merited here before assuming one knows what happened.

* * * * *

Adrian Lamo and Kevin Poulsen have a long and strange history together. Both were convicted of felonies relating to computer hacking: Poulsen in 1994 (when he was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, ironically because a friend turned government informant on him), and Lamo in 2004 for hacking into The New York Times. When the U.S. Government was investigating Lamo in 2003, they subpoenaed news agencies for any documents reflecting conversations not only with Lamo, but also with Poulsen. That's because Lamo typically sought media publicity after his hacking adventures, and almost always used Poulsen to provide that publicity.

Despite being convicted of serious hacking felonies, Poulsen was allowed by the U.S. Government to become a journalist covering the hacking world for Security Focus News. Back in 2002, Information Week described the strange Lamo-Poulsen relationship this way: "To publicize his work, [Lamo] often tapped ex-hacker-turned-journalist Kevin Poulsen as his go-between: Poulsen contacts the hacked company, alerts it to the break-in, offers Lamo's cooperation, then reports the hack on the SecurityFocus Online Web site, where he's a news editor." When Lamo hacked into the NYT, it was Poulsen who notified the newspaper's executives on Lamo's behalf, and then wrote about it afterward. Poulsen told me that the above picture was taken at a lunch the two of them had together with convicted hacker Kevin Mitnick back in 2001. When I asked Poulsen if he considers Lamo his friend, he would respond only by saying: "He's a subject and a source."

Actually, over the years, Poulsen has served more or less as Lamo's personal media voice. Back in 2000, Poulsen would quote Lamo as an expert source on hacking. That same year, Poulsen -- armed with exclusive, inside information from Lamo -- began writing about Lamo's various hacking adventures. After Lamo's conviction, Poulsen wrote about his post-detention battles with law enforcement and a leaked documentary featuring Lamo. As detailed below, Lamo is notorious in the world of hacking for being a low-level, inconsequential hacker with an insatiable need for self-promotion and media attention, and for the past decade, it has been Poulsen who satisfies that need.

On May 20 -- a month ago -- Poulsen, out of nowhere, despite Lamo's not having been in the news for years, wrote a long, detailed Wired article describing serious mental health problems Lamo was experiencing. The story Poulsen wrote goes as follows: after Lamo's backpack containing pharmaceutical products was stolen sometime in April (Lamo claims they were prescribed anti-depressants), Lamo called the police, who concluded that he was experiencing such acute psychiatric distress that they had him involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for three days. That 72-hour "involuntary psychiatric hold" was then extended by a court for six more days, after which he was released to his parents' home. Lamo claimed he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a somewhat fashionable autism diagnosis which many stars in the computer world have also claimed. In that article, Poulsen also summarized Lamo's extensive hacking history. Lamo told me that, while he was in the mental hospital, he called Poulsen to tell him what happened, and then told Poulsen he could write about it for a Wired article. So starved was Lamo for some media attention that he was willing to encourage Poulsen to write about his claimed psychiatric problems if it meant an article in Wired that mentioned his name.

It was just over two weeks after writing about Lamo's Asperger's, depression and hacking history that Poulsen, along with Kim Zetter, reported that PFC Manning had been detained, after, they said, he had "contacted former hacker Adrian Lamo late last month over instant messenger and e-mail." Lamo told me that Manning first emailed him on May 20 and, according to highly edited chat logs released by Wired, had his first online chat with Manning on May 21; in other words, Manning first contacted Lamo the very day that Poulsen's Wired article on Lamo's involuntary commitment appeared (the Wired article is time-stamped 5:46 p.m. on May 20).

Lamo, however, told me that Manning found him not from the Wired article -- which Manning never mentioned reading -- but from searching the word "WikiLeaks" on Twitter, which led him to a tweet Lamo had written that included the word "WikiLeaks." Even if Manning had really found Lamo through a Twitter search for "WikiLeaks," Lamo could not explain why Manning focused on him, rather than the thousands of other people who have also mentioned the word "WikiLeaks" on Twitter, including countless people who have done so by expressing support for WikiLeaks.

Although none of the Wired articles ever mention this, the first Lamo-Manning communications were not actually via chat. Instead, Lamo told me that Manning first sent him a series of encrypted emails which Lamo was unable to decrypt because Manning "encrypted it to an outdated PGP key of mine" [PGP is an encryption program]. After receiving this first set of emails, Lamo says he replied -- despite not knowing who these emails were from or what they were about -- by inviting the emailer to chat with him on AOL IM, and provided his screen name to do so. Lamo says that Manning thereafter sent him additional emails encrypted to his current PGP key, but that Lamo never bothered to decrypt them. Instead, Lamo claims he turned over all those Manning emails to the FBI without ever reading a single one of them. Thus, the actual initial communications between Manning and Lamo -- what preceded and led to their chat -- are completely unknown. Lamo refuses to release the emails or chats other than the small chat snippets published by Wired.

Using the chat logs between Lamo and Manning -- which Lamo provided to Poulsen -- the Wired writers speculated that the Army Private trusted Lamo because he "sensed a kindred spirit in the ex-hacker." Poulsen and Zetter write that Manning confessed to being the leaker of the Apache attack video "very quickly in the exchange," and then proceeded to boast that, in addition, "he leaked a quarter-million classified embassy cables" to WikiLeaks. Very shortly after the first chat, Lamo notified federal agents of what Manning told him, proceeded to speak to Manning for the next several days while consulting with federal agents, and then learned that Manning was detained in Iraq.

* * * * *

Many of the bizarre aspects of this case, at least as conveyed by Lamo and Wired, are self-evident. Why would a 22-year-old Private in Iraq have unfettered access to 250,000 pages of diplomatic cables so sensitive that they "could do serious damage to national security?" Why would he contact a total stranger, whom he randomly found from a Twitter search, in order to "quickly" confess to acts that he knew could send him to prison for a very long time, perhaps his whole life? And why would he choose to confess over the Internet, in an unsecured, international AOL IM chat, given the obvious ease with which that could be preserved, intercepted or otherwise surveilled? These are the actions of someone either unbelievably reckless or actually eager to be caught.

All that said, this series of events isn't completely implausible. It's possible that a 22-year-old who engaged in these kinds of significant leaks, sitting in isolation in Iraq, would have a desire to unburden himself by confessing to a stranger; the psychological compulsion to confess is not uncommon (see Crime and Punishment), nor is the desire to boast of such acts. It's possible that he would have expected someone with Lamo's hacking and "journalist" background to be sympathetic to what he did and/or to feel compelled as a journalist not to run to the Government and disclose what he learns from a source. Still, the apparent ease with which Manning quickly spilled his guts in such painstaking detail over an Internet chat concerning such serious crimes -- and then proceeded to respond to Lamo's very specific and probing interrogations over days without ever once worrying that he could not trust Lamo -- is strange in the extreme.

If one assumes that this happened as the Wired version claims, what Lamo did here is despicable. He holds himself out as an "award-winning journalist" and told Manning he was one ("I did tell him that I worked as a journalist," Lamo said). Indeed, Lamo told me (though it doesn't appear in the chat logs published by Wired) that he told Manning early on that he was a journalist and thus could offer him confidentiality for everything they discussed under California's shield law. Lamo also said he told Manning that he was an ordained minister and could treat Manning's talk as a confession, which would then compel Lamo under the law to keep their discussions confidential (early on in their chats, Manning said: "I can't believe what I'm confessing to you"). In sum, Lamo explicitly led Manning to believe he could trust him and that their discussions would be confidential -- perhaps legally required to be kept confidential -- only to then report everything Manning said to the Government.

Worse, Lamo breached his own confidentiality commitments and turned informant without having the slightest indication that Manning had done anything to harm national security. Indeed, Lamo acknowledged to me that he was incapable of identifying a single fact contained in any documents leaked by Manning that would harm national security. And Manning's capacity to leak in the future was likely non-existent given that he told Lamo right away that he was "pending discharge" for "adjustment disorder," and no longer had access to any documents (Lamo: "Why does your job afford you access?" - Manning: "because i have a workstation . . . *had*").

If one believes what the chat logs claim, Manning certainly thought he was a whistle-blower acting with the noblest of motives, and probably was exactly that. And if he really is the leaker of the Apache helicopter attack video -- a video which sparked very rare and much-needed realization about the visceral truth of what our wars entail -- then he's a national hero similar to Daniel Ellsberg. Indeed, Ellsberg himself said the very same thing about Manning just yesterday on Democracy Now:

The fact is that what Lamo reports Manning is saying has a very familiar and persuasive ring to me. He reports Manning as having said that what he had read and what he was passing on were horrible -- evidence of horrible machinations by the US backdoor dealings throughout the Middle East and, in many cases, as he put it, almost crimes. And let me guess that -- he’s not a lawyer, but I'll guess that what looked to him like crimes are crimes, that he was putting out. We know that he put out, or at least it's very plausible that he put out, the videos that he claimed to Lamo. And that's enough to go on to get them interested in pursuing both him and the other.

And so, what it comes down, to me, is -- and I say throwing caution to the winds here -- is that what I've heard so far of Assange and Manning -- and I haven't met either of them -- is that they are two new heroes of mine.

To see why that's so, just review some of what Manning said about why he chose to leak, as reflected in the edited chat logs published by Wired:

Lamo: what's your endgame plan, then?. . .

Manning: well, it was forwarded to [WikiLeaks] - and god knows what happens now - hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms - if not, than [sic] we're doomed - as a species - i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens - the reaction to the video gave me immense hope; CNN's iReport was overwhelmed; Twitter exploded - people who saw, knew there was something wrong . . . - i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.

Manning described the incident which first made him seriously question the U.S. war in Iraq: when he was instructed to work on the case of Iraqi "insurgents" who had been detained for distributing "insurgent" literature which, when he had it translated, turned out to be nothing more than "a scholarly critique against PM Maliki":

i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled "Where did the money go?" and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees…

i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…

And he explained why the thought of selling this classified information he was leaking to a foreign power never entered his mind:

Manning: i mean what if i were someone more malicious- i could've sold to russia or china, and made bank?

Lamo: why didn’t you?

Manning: because it's public data

Lamo: i mean, the cables

Manning: it belongs in the public domain -information should be free - it belongs in the public domain - because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge - if its out in the open… it should be a public good.

That's a whistleblower in the purest form: discovering government secrets of criminal and corrupt acts and then publicizing them to the world not for profit, not to give other nations an edge, but to trigger "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms." That's the person that Adrian Lamo informed on and risked sending to prison for an extremely long time.

Making Lamo's conduct even worse is that it appears he reported Manning for no reason other than a desire for some trivial media attention. Jacob Appelbaum, a well-known hacker of the Tor Project who has known Lamo for years, said that Lamo's "only concern" has always been "getting publicity for Adrian." Indeed, Lamo's modus operandi as a hacker was primitive hacking aimed at high-profile companies that he'd then use Poulsen to publicize. As Appelbaum put it: "if this situation really fell into Adrian's lap, his first and only thought would have been: how can I turn this to my advantage? He basically destroyed a 22-year-old's life in order to get his name mentioned on the Wired.com blog." [There are efforts underway to help secure very competent legal counsel for Manning, including a legal defense fund for him; assuming the facts are what the current narrative suggests, I intend to post more about that shortly].

None of Lamo's claims that he turned informant out of some grave concern for "national security" and "the lives of his fellow citizens" make any sense. Indeed, Lamo several months ago contributed $30 to WikiLeaks, which he's use to tout his support for whistle-blowing, and told me has has long considered himself on "the far left." Yet in the public statements he's made about what he did to Manning, he's incoherently invoked a slew of trite, right-wing justifications, denouncing Manning as a "traitor" and a "spy," while darkly insinuating that Manning provided classified information to a so-called "foreign national," meaning WikiLeaks' Assange. Lamo told me that any embarrassment to the U.S. Government could cause a loss of American lives, and that he believes anyone who breaks the law with leaks should be prosecuted. Yet he also claims to support WikiLeaks, which is run by that very same "foreign national" and which exists to enable illegal leaks.

Then there's the fact that, just in the last two weeks, Lamo's statements have been filled with countless contradictions of the type that suggests deliberate lying. Lamo told me, for instance, that Manning first contacted him with a series of emails, but told Yahoo! News that "Manning contacted him via AOL Instant Messenger 'out of the blue' on May 21." Lamo told Yahoo! "that he spelled out very clearly in his chats with Manning that he wasn't ... acting as a journalist," that it "was clear to Manning that he had taken his journalist hat off for the purposes of their conversation," and that "Manning refused" a confidentiality offer, but last night he said to me that he told Manning their conversations would have journalist-source confidentiality and that Manning never refused or rejected that. Just listen to the interview Lamo gave to me and make your own judgment about his veracity.

* * * * *

And what about Wired's role in all of this? Both WikiLeaks as well as various Internet commentators have suggested that Poulsen violated journalistic ethical rules by being complicit with Lamo in informing on Manning. I don't see any evidence for that. This is what Poulsen told me when I asked him about whether he participated in Lamo's informing on Manning:

Adrian reached out to me in late May to tell me a story about how he'd been contacted by an Army intelligence analyst who'd admitted to leaking 260,000 State Department diplomatic cables to a "foreign national." Adrian told me he had already reported the matter to the government, and was meeting the Army and FBI in person to pass on chat logs. He declined to provide independently verifiable details, or identify the intelligence analyst by name, because he said he considered the matter sensitive.

Several days passed before he was willing to give me the chat logs under embargo. I got them on May 27. That's when I learned Manning's name and the full details of his claims to Adrian. . . . If you're asking if I informed on Manning or anyone else, the answer is no, and the question is insulting.

At the time when Lamo was conspiring with federal agents to induce Manning into making incriminating statements, Poulsen, by his own account, was aware that this was taking place, but there's no indication he participated in any way with Lamo. What is true, though, is that Lamo gave Wired the full, unedited version of his chat logs with Manning, but Wired published only extremely edited samplings of it. This is what Poulsen told me when I asked if Lamo gave him all of the chat logs:

He did, but I don't think we'll be publishing more any time soon. The remainder is either Manning discussing personal matters that aren't clearly related to his arrest, or apparently sensitive government information that I'm not throwing up without vetting first.

This part of Wired's conduct deserves a lot more attention. First, in his interview with me, Lamo claimed that all sorts of things took place in the discussion between him and Manning that are (a) extremely relevant to what happened, (b) have nothing to do with Manning's personal issues or sensitive national security secrets, and yet © are nowhere to be found in the chat logs published by Wired. That means either that Lamo is lying about what was said or Wired is concealing highly relevant aspects of their discussions. Included among that is Manning's explanation about how he found Lamo and why he contacted him, Manning's alleged claim that his "intention was to cripple the United States' foreign relations for the foreseeable future," and discussions they had about the capacity in which they were speaking.

Second, one can't help but note the irony that two hackers-turned-journalists -- Poulsen and Lamo -- are now the self-anointed guardians of America's national security, the former concealing secrets he learned as a journalist on vague national security grounds and the latter turning informant by invoking the most extreme, right-wing platitudes about "traitors" and "spies" and decrees that his actions were necessary to "save American lives."

Third, Wired should either publish all of the chat logs, or be far more diligent about withholding only those parts which truly pertain only to Manning's private and personal matters and/or which would reveal national security secrets. Or they should have a respected third party review the parts they have concealed to determine if there is any justification for that. At least if one believes Lamo's claims, there are clearly relevant parts of those chats which Wired continues to conceal.

Given Poulsen's mutually beneficial and multi-layered relationship with Lamo, they have far more than a standard journalist-source relationship. None of Poulsen's articles about the highly controversial Lamo is ever even remotely critical of him, in any sense of the word. From the start, there were countless bizarre aspects to Lamo's story which Poulsen never examined or explored, at least not when writing about any of this. I see no reason to doubt Poulsen's integrity or good faith. Still, in light of the magnitude of this story on several levels and his long relationship with Lamo, Kevin Poulsen should not be single-handedly deciding what the public is and isn't permitted to know about the Lamo-Manning interaction.

* * * * *

The reason this story matters so much -- aside from the fact that it may be the case that a truly heroic, 22-year-old whistle-blower is facing an extremely lengthy prison term -- is the unique and incomparably valuable function WikiLeaks is fulfilling. Even before the Apache helicopter leak, I wrote at length about why they are so vital, and won't repeat all of that here. Suffice to say, there are very few entities, if there are any, which pose as much of a threat to the ability of governmental and corporate elites to shroud their corrupt conduct behind an extreme wall of secrecy.

What makes WikiLeaks particularly threatening to the most powerful factions is that they cannot control it. Even when whistle-blowers in the past have leaked serious corruption and criminal conduct to perfectly good journalists at the nation's largest corporate media outlets, government officials could control how the information was disclosed. When the NYT learned in 2004 that the Bush administration was illegally eavesdropping on Americans without warrants, George Bush summoned the paper's Publisher and Executive Editor to the Oval Office, demanded that the story not be published, and the paper complied by sitting on it for a full year until after Bush was safely re-elected. When The Washington Post's Dana Priest learned that the CIA was maintaining a network of secret prisons -- black sites -- she honored the request of "senior U.S. officials" not to identify the countries where those prisons were located so as to not disrupt the U.S.'s ability to continue to use those countries for such projects.

Both WikiLeaks and Manning have stated that The Washington Post's David Finkel, when writing his book on Iraq two years ago, had possession of the Apache helicopter video but never released it to the public (Manning: "Washington Post sat on the video … David Finkel acquired a copy while embedded out here"). As Columbia Journalism Review reported, both the Post and Finkel were quite coy and evasive in addressing that claim, pointedly insisting that "the Post" had never possessed that video while refusing to say whether Finkel did. The same thing happened when, on the same day, I called Finkel to ask him about WikiLeaks' claim that they possessed but never released that video. He very curtly told me, using careful legalistic language, that "the Post never had the video," but before I could ask whether Finkel himself did, he abruptly told me he couldn't talk anymore and had nothing else to say, and then hung up on me. My inquiries to the Post were met with a pro forma response that "The Washington Post did not have the video, nor did we sit on anything," but these Journalistic Crusaders for Transparency refused to answer my question as to whether Finkel himself did.

By stark contrast, WikiLeaks isn't interested in helping governments, militaries and corporations keep secrets. They're interested in the opposite: forcing transparency on institutions which conduct the vast, vast bulk of their substantive conduct in the dark. They're not susceptible to pressure from political and corporate officials; rather, they want to hold them accountable. That's what makes WikiLeaks so uniquely threatening to elite institutions, and anyone who doubts that should simply read the 2008 Pentagon Report discussing ways to destroy it, or review the Obama administration's unprecedented and rapidly escalating war on whistle-blowers generally.

Any rational person would have to acknowledge that government secrecy in rare cases is justifiable and that it's possible for leaks of legitimate secrets to result in serious harm. I'm not aware of a single instance where any leak from WikiLeaks has done so, but it's certainly possible that, at some point, it might. But right now, the scales are tipped so far in the other direction -- toward excessive, all-consuming secrecy -- that the far greater danger comes from allowing that to fester and grow even more. It's not even a close call. Any efforts to subvert that secrecy cult are commendable in the extreme, and nobody is doing that as effectively as WikiLeaks (and their value is not confined to leaking, as they just inspired a serious effort to turn Iceland into a worldwide haven for investigative journalism and anonymous whistle-blowers).

This Manning detention -- whether it was by design or just exploited opportunistically -- is being used to depict WikiLeaks as a serious national security threat and associations with it as dangerous and subversive. Just in the last week alone, several people have expressed to me fears that supporting or otherwise enabling WikiLeaks could subject them to liability or worse. There's no reason to believe that's true, but given the powers the U.S. Government claims -- lawless detentions, renditions, assassinations even of American citizens -- that's the climate of intimidation that has been created. This latest incident is clearly being used to impede WikiLeaks' vital function of checking powerful factions and imposing transparency, and for that reason alone, this is an extremely serious case that merits substantial scrutiny, along with genuine skepticism to understand what happened.

* * * * *

My one-hour discussion with Lamo last night can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorders below. It is in two segments (the first roughly 40 minutes, the second roughly 20) because Lamo requested at one point that we go off the record, which we did for 1 minute or so to discuss the parts of Manning's chat that Lamo claims are too personal to publish (Lamo spoke only in generalities about that and I learned nothing specific). The only other part that is edited out is the first two minutes or so of the discussion, before the interview begins, where Lamo for some reason insists that I respond to a Tweet of his before we begin, which I then did.

Part 1:

Part 2:



UPDATE: Four relevant items from today: (1) The Washington Post's Jeff Stein reports on Julian Assange's fear of being arrested by U.S. authorities, as well as what appears to be the imminent release by WikiLeaks of a video showing a horrendous U.S. air strike in Afghanistan that killed far more civilians than the U.S. military acknowledged; (2) After interviewing Poulsen, Columbia Journalism Review publishes a timeline reporting that, shortly before Lamo's scheduled May 27 meeting with FBI agents about Manning, Poulsen traveled on that date to Sacramento and "spent a few hours with Lamo"; (3) Judging by this June 10 article, The Washington Post obtained at least some of the Lamo-Manning chats, and quoted parts which Wired has not published -- proving that Wired is withholding more than just "personal issues" and national security secrets; and (4) Gawker's Adrian Chen has an excellent post demanding that Wired provide far more transparency regarding the parts of the Lamo-Manning chats they continue to conceal.

[FastTadpole]

From the tracker thread:
ABC Foreign Correspondent - Truth or Dare - Wikileaks (2010)
http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-details.php?id=17988

Synopsis: An MSM Promo for WikiLeaks 4 days after Bradley Manning gets ratted out and thrown to the wolves.

That military insider's name is Bradley Manning. He was not He is an outspoken 22 year old that may have trusted wikileaks too explicitly. Who is to say for sure that was the only tape that he had submitted to them.

Sign the “Justice for Bradley Manning” petition today!
http://www.bradleymanning.org/

“It is impossible to correct abuses unless we know that they’re going on.” ~Julian Assange

I respect the promoted plight of wikileaks but it cannot be the only site and if it were me personally I would not upload whistleblower material there, or at least only there. There is content that Assange has admittedly withheld based solely on his judgment alone. I fear it may either be monitored, a honeypot, or a really sophisticated controlled opposition. The CRU files made it up on the net just fine without wikileaks involvement just a forum post linking to an FTP of the 2000+ Climategate emails.

WikiLeaks has been promoted by Time Magazine. It has been given profile among the 'conspiracy crowd' and the infiltrated tea party by The Pentagon as a security threat - kind of like the publicly announced top 50 domestic bad guys that had identified Glen Beck and Alex Jones. And we have exhibit C - ABC news in this video.

Now this serves another agenda. A reason to lock down the internet because of sites like WikiLeaks. Since they are threatening National Security. Japanese Fansubbing sites have been shut down with a simple domain request. They could drum up charges on Assange, heck he just made an announced appearance for an interview at UC Berkley before going 'mole'.

Julian Assange: Is WikiLeaks Biased?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBENlJfZ-f8

Here's my post in response to what he refers to as withholding gutter documents, let's see if it sticks or gets buried down:

Quote:Why not upload it all, even the gutter stuff, and leave it to the reader to decide what to be censored Julian? Design a site highlights what you think is relevant. Surely it is not due to lack of resources, since the outstanding promotion and marketing campaign to brand leaks and associate the meme with WikiLeaks has translated to a higher profile -- even being mentioned on ABC and in Time. Too bad Bradley Manning (Collateral Murder) was jailed, but that was Adrian Lamo and Kevin Poulsen, right?

I'd go on but YouTube doesn't allow hyperlinks for reference or posts over ~500 chars or so.

Quote:There is a whole other dimension in this story concerning Adrian Lamo. I'm not sure if he's just stupid, fearful of imprisonment once again or an abiding agent. He built a good rep in being a white hat hacker and then may have used it to pose as a journalist extract information on Manning and rat him out to authorities. A journalist @Wired magazine (Poulsen) with long standing ties to Lamo also had connections to outing Bradley Manning's identity. Lamo met with FBI agents and Poulsen before meeting with Manning.

Full Interview: Glenn Greenwald's Salon expose of the Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo & WikiLeaks affair
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=33504
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_...index.html

Excerpt:

Quote:Manning also had submitted a yet-to-be-published video of a civilian-killing air attack in Afghanistan, and "hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records."
This Manning detention -- whether it was by design or just exploited opportunistically -- is being used to depict WikiLeaks as a serious national security threat and associations with it as dangerous and subversive. Just in the last week alone, several people have expressed to me fears that supporting or otherwise enabling WikiLeaks could subject them to liability or worse. There's no reason to believe that's true, but given the powers the U.S. Government claims -- lawless detentions, renditions, assassinations even of American citizens -- that's the climate of intimidation that has been created. This latest incident is clearly being used to impede WikiLeaks' vital function of checking powerful factions and imposing transparency, and for that reason alone, this is an extremely serious case that merits substantial scrutiny, along with genuine scepticism to understand what happened.

I totally got this guy and won me over for his life view. Here's my post about him previously.

Quote:Adrian Lamo is a phreaking awesome dude. I hung off his every word.

.. they have drugged him and worse:

Ex-Hacker Adrian Lamo Institutionalized for Asperger’s (by Kevin Poulsen)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/lamo/

.. that was then ..

They had some time to work on him. I agree, Lamo sounded like he was distraught. This isn't the same carefree guy that was presented in the documentary.

Quote:Assange was making a public persona for Americans. That really might be the best method of keeping yourself alive when you get on a Fed grab/hit list. Or if you plan on whistleblowing bad US military behavior. He is strategically trying to save his life. Good luck, Assange.

Could go either way but he's getting spun in a good light by the fourth branch of government so I can't help but consider the possibility that Assange has been co-opted or was a tool all along. I also wonder what he's been holding back. He does have a degree of separation from the Manning abduction. Manning could very well have felt like he was a Daniel Ellsburg and would be celebrated for his courage and quest for truth. Why is Manning being interrogated and Assange is a ghost that spontaneously appears on a national stage and gets promoted by MSM.

I'm not saying this is the case in this instance there are lots of scenarios that seem to fit. I urge everyone that looks at this case, WikiLeaks seriously to consider the possibility and ask why? Consider the motive of such a move.

I understand. Everyone needs heroes, everyone needs role models and people to look up to in any field and the media may be doing a clever job of pumping these guys up to ramp us along a certain course of action. It may be harder but it is important to come up with independent thought and do our own investigation without relying on other people's conclusions no matter how well they fit and especially if they fit all to well with a common story.

Consider the possibility that they could be disinfo meant to confuse and throw us off the scent. Don't go for the easy conclusion, that's more than likely always incorrect, especially now.

They don't mind if they can fool most of the people most of the time they still complete their objective. The internet alt news is being set up with an array of characters that they are test ballooning different fits, many for years. To railroad thought. Find a think tank you can trust, verify all you can without accepting anything you cannot prove yourself. Get the big picture then specialize on some topic or arena.

Personally I'm still fishing for one and taking in the big picture to see all the pieces on the board so I know how my areas of aptitude can fit into. I don't want to be blind to any area completely so I am better able to hold a conversation on certain topics outside my field without having to get everything explained to me each time I encounter a new arena.

The internet is monitored and they can see what we are thinking collectively what the group psychology will bite on and know by now what works and what doesn't down to a science.

The path less travelled has forks in the road trail-blaze what you can when it is within your reach.

The Whistleblower and the WikiLeaker

Here is some Google Character Assasination with some promos for Assange and WikiLeaks thrown in.

Now #3 Link on Google for the search "Bradley Manning"

Quote:Was Bradley Manning a transgender person unable to transition because he was active duty military?

"Julian Assange"
   
Notice the subtext in the Google links - the people's voice, the next hope, the amazing Julian Assange

"Bradley Manning"
   
notice all the WikiLeaks and Assange promos embedded within the Bradley image search. Nice pictures they selected of him

[h3rm35]

good to hear you're on the case as well, FT. I've kept my eye on cryptome for years, but this case almost assuredly has placed an undue and unwanted spotlight on them as well...

I get this feeling like ellsberg, along with assange are both people who did what they did for the right reasons, and their actions have been co-opted in an attempt to fleece the american public (and other people) into thinking that they are safe, or somehow represented by the press. The Wikileaks-Manning situation is just two branches of the DoD public relations machine showing how brilliant they are (under the "new" administration) at spinning stories they themselves have created. I find it interesting that the Kennedy School of Government released their research telling us all that media is subservient to "government" a couple weeks after this hit the news-stands and blogosphere and we've heard nothing about it since.

Happy "independence" day, sheep.

[h3rm35]

http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-buck.htm

Quote: 3 July 2010

Previous:

wikileaks-acts.htm Wikileaks Activists Ongoing Concerns June 30, 2010
wikileaks-fish.htm Assange is preparing to do a Fischer June 25, 2010
wikileaks-auth.htm Wikileaks Insider Authentication June 19, 2010
wikileaks-blow.htm Wikileaks Terrible Funding Blow June 18, 2010
wikileaks-costs.htm Wikileaks Costs June 15, 2010
wikileaks-dogs.htm Wikileaks Will Throw Manning to the Dogs June 14, 2010
wikileaks-funds.htm Wikileaks Funding Drive May 16, 2010
wikileaks-dream.htm Wikileaks-Snake Oil or Just a Hackers Wet Dream? April 19, 2010

Related: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/pgpboard/

A sends via PGPboard, 3 July 2010:

Where Is WIKILEAKS Money Mr. Assange?

WIKILEAKS internal structure is becoming more of a closed shop than ever. What really is beginning to concern us is the increasing lack of accounting for donations received from internet donors. There is absolutely no accounting in terms of monies received and expenditures. In addition to this, Assange is the only person with direct access to WIKILEAKS funds. The lack of large donations is beginning to expose WIKILEAKS to undesirable political influence. WIKILEAKS is receiving keep alive donations from the Movement Party in Iceland. This is a small group of left wing politicians in the Icelandic parliament. Sooner or later it will be payback time. And payback will be in the form of political bias in WIKILEAKS output.

Our (ACTIVISTS) internal estimates put Assange's personal expenditure including business class air travel, accommodation and personal expenses at $52,000 from April 1st 2010 to July 1st 2010.

We must engage a firm of accountants to publish our accounts, expenditures and liabilities. Many reputable NGO's operating in difficult and threatening political environments routinely do this, whilst protecting both their staff and donor base.

Assange cannot rely upon the never ending largess of the internet community. Cracks in the gloss are already evident.

Where is WIKILEAKS Money Mr. Assange?

In more ways than one Mr. Assange; the buck stops with you..

Wikileaks Insider

Authentication Code Follows

[Code omitted.]

---

http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-case.htm

Quote: 2 July 2010. Adrián Lamo responds:

http://cryptome.org/0001/lamo-denies.htm

28 June 2010

Stephanie interview: http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-views.htm
PGPboard references: http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-fish.htm

A sends 28 June 2010:

Thanks for publishing your interview with Stephanie. Granted it is a bit harsh -- but what you said is about journalism is entirely true, and I'm glad you said it. I decided to write in because I wanted to share my thoughts on the Wikileaks case.

First, through contacts I do not want to go into, I have crossed paths with Adrian Lamo and Kevin Poulsen. They have reputations in the hacker community as being untrustworthy. Lamo in particular. Lamo's name is synonymous with both 'idiot' and 'narc'. When Lamo was arrested previously, he called up any hackers he had contact with, and asked them for information about their activities for a 'book he was writing'. I know this from primary sources. Obviously what had happened is that Lamo had offerred to cooperate with the feds in exchange for his assistance in giving the Feds information on other more competant hackers. No book was ever published.

Lamo has a long history of working with feds and spooks, and has an insatiable desire for getting his name in the press. He was in a mental hospital shortly before his latest 'news break' in the Manning case -- an act of pure coincidence if we are to believe the official story. I wouldn't be surprised if the Feds recruited Lamo for whatever is going on with this Wikileaks operation, considering he is easily manipulated and has a deep psychological need for attention, unburdened by the constraints of ordinary human morality.

So I'm saying, I agree -- this whole thing is fishy. I immediately became suspect of all my previous assumptions regarding Wikileaks once I realized that Lamo was directly connected to the Bradley Manning arrest. Why would any whistleblower in their right mind contact Adrian Lamo? His name is a joke among hackers. Just saying it in the presence of some hackers might induce laughter. So like I said, this looks more and more like a covert operation. It simply does not make sense for Manning to contact Adrian Lamo.

I keep thinking about the 'leaked' report on destroying Wikileaks from Army Counterintelligence. I want to propose two theories regarding Wikileaks after thinking about this at length:

Theory #1 -- 'Legitimate but Untrustworthy'

1) Wikileaks is indeed a legitimate outlet, poorly run by an spendthrift and egotistical hacker (Assange). If this is the case, then whoever is feeding you 'internal' information via PGPboard is a probably a spook intending to seed doubt, foster division, and ultimately destroy the organizations fundraising ability. It is less likely, but possible, that your 'mole' on PGPboard is legitimate. Very difficult to tell. If the 'mole' is legitimate, then Wikileaks must become transparent in order to survive. Either way, in this 'Legitimate but Untrustworthy' theory, the spooks are following the game plan from the Army Counterintelligence report, and are trying to destroy Wikileaks -- perhaps from the inside. Exactly 'how' Manning, Lamo, and Poulsen relate to the spooks is a question which I have not yet resolved.

Theory #2 -- 'Controlled Opposition'

Wikileaks is run as 'controlled opposition', with or without Assange's knowledge. Perhaps he is an unwilling dupe. Either way, if this theory is correct, the Army Counterintelligence report does not make sense -- unless Wikileaks is a 'deep black' type program run by, or somehow indirectly controlled by, intelligence assets.

If this theory is actually the case, here are some potential purposes for running Wikileaks as 'controlled opposition':

A) Act as a 'honeypot' to catch real leakers and sympathisers (those who leak documents and donate money).

B) Gain as much media credibility and exposure as possible, so that everyone knows what 'Wikileaks' is.

C) At some point, implode the organization in high-profile manner -- in order to send 'chilling effects' throughout society -- amplified worldwide by the transmission channels of the mass media.

If #2 is correct then the guy feeding you information via PGPboard is again, a spook, with the purpose of enabling covert actors (read: his bosses) to better control the implosion of the organization, as well as the manipulation of the public.

[FastTadpole]

No doubt there are spooks feeding misinfo to the site. The post is being somewhat bias in not mentioning "Theory #3: WikiLeaks is Totally Legit and is being set up for a fall" - less unlikely according to recent developments, but plausible. I suppose it may just go without saying and the framework is to vet out possibilities of compromise within WikiLeaks. So fair enough.

Quote:Adrian Lamo .. His name is a joke among hackers.

He seemed to have a neat life view that I admired. Yeah he wasn't really a great hacker, I wouldn't even associate him with hacking really. Although he had good dir tree instincts and picked off the low hanging fruit. The fact Spacey got in on his project suggests to me he was manufactured though.

A point to consider. Lamo (directory exploits), Poulsen (phone jacking[*]) and Assange (cryptography, port scanning) are all former "hackers".

1993 <<...>> Kevin Poulsen is charged with using computers to rig promotional contests at three Los Angeles radio stations, in a scheme that allegedly netted two Porsches, $20,000 in cash and at least two trips to

[*]

Quote:Hawaii. Poulsen, already a fugitive facing federal telecommunications and computer charges, is accused of conspiring with two other hackers, Ronald Mark Austin and Justin Tanner Peterson, to seize control of incoming phone lines at the radio stations. By making sure that only their calls got through, they were able to "win" the top prize.

Quote:Known online as Dark Dante, In 1990 he took over all telephone lines going into Los Angeles area radio station KIIS-FM, assuring that he would be the 102nd caller. Poulsen won a Porsche 944 S2 for his efforts. Got his first copmuter when his parents bought him a TRS-80 (better known as a "Trash-80"). Used a set of locksmith tools he used to break into phone company trailers. He was caught after a friend commemorated the break-ins with snapshots of Poulsen picking locks. He admitted breaking into computers to get the names of undercover businesses operated by the FBI. Thanks to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Kevin Poulsen was arrested and spent three years in prison. He was then forbidden to touch a computer for another three years. Poulsen is now a self-proclaimed "reformed and penitent" journalist, and serves as editorial director for Security Focus.

Interesting thing on Justin Tanner Petersen:

Quote:1991 <<...>> Police arrest Justin Tanner Petersen in Dallas for possession of a stolen car and find computer files that lead to charges that he broke into the TRW computer system. After his conviction, Petersen is approached by the FBI and the Secret Service to assist in computer investigations. He reportedly helps investigators with the Mitnick case, but in October 1993 he disappears and a short time later is declared a fugitive. He resurfaces in 1994, as a confederate of Kevin Poulsen in his radio-station contest-rigging scheme. (See 1993.)

Sources:
http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stu...k/hall.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Poulsen
http://www.roadnews.com/html/Articles/hi...acking.htm

I also read the entire email log between Poulsen and Greenwald
http://utdocuments.blogspot.com/2010/06/...kevin.html

and

A reactionary tweet by Julian Assange referring to Greenwald's Article

Quote:Adrian Lamo&Kevin Poulson are notorious felons,informers&manipulators. Journalists should take care. http://bit.ly/chFsGC

http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/15624063923

and

More clever marketing or is this to discredit him?

Quote: A report that Julian Assange has been awarded the Sam Adams Award is intriguing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Adams_Award

The Sam Adams Award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers, to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War, and takes the physical form of a "corner-brightener candlestick". As of 2009, all recipients have been whistleblowers.

Recipients

For 2002 : Coleen Rowley
For 2003 : Katharine Gun
For 2004 : Sibel Edmonds
For 2005 : Craig Murray
For 2006 : Samuel Provance
For 2007 : Andrew Wilkie
For 2008 : Frank Grevil
For 2009 : Larry Wilkerson
For 2010 : Julian Assange

[From 2002-2009 all recipients have been whistleblowers and former government officials having access to intelligence material. Despite unsubstantiated allegations Assange has not been fingered by spies themselves to be an intelligence professional or a former government official having access to intelligence material. Keeping mind that there are no ex-spies -- a spy by oath, by secrecy agreement and lifetime benefits and pension bribery is a spy forever or executed.]

http://www.cryptome.org/

The fairest and most thorough article published as to why Bradley Manning blew the whistle IMO.
Suspected Wikileaks Source Described Crisis of Conscience Leading to Leaks
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/conscience/

‘I Can’t Believe What I’m Confessing to You’: The Wikileaks Chats
(Partial - sensitive and personal material redacted)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06...eaks-chat/

My Feelings:

* I think they are using Lamo to discredit Poulsen
* Assange is suspect because of his recent actions and promotion in MSM TV and Internet
* There needs to be more sites that allow annonymous, untraceable uncensored upload gateway sites on the net, it can't be just WikiLeaks

One thing still really bugs me -- why the chance run in with Lamo and Manning?

[h3rm35]

http://cryptome.org/0001/lamo-greenwald.htm
Blinded By Contempt

By Adrian Lamo
Research & Fact-checking by Jason Mick (jason.mick[at]dailytech.com)

"The difficultly one has in writing about the Manning/WikiLeaks story is the blinding contempt one has for what Adrian Lamo did."

- Glenn Greenwald, Twitter | http://bit.ly/9k5wMN

"Frankly, (Greenwald's) assertions sound bizarre, even lunatic, to anyone who has ever met a journalist or a newspaper editor."

- TheAtlantic.com | http://bit.ly/9mu0BQ

"Deceive, inveigle, obfuscate"

-The X-Files | http://bit.ly/bTXKP2

On 06 June 2010, Kevin Lee Poulsen & Kim Zetter of Wired News broke the story that PFC. Bradley Manning had been arrested in Iraq following online discussions with me, in which he confessed to what could most charitably be called mishandling of classified information. Someone less charitable could call it espionage - the deliberate leaking of classified information to Wikileaks.org. A few weeks later, Salon.com reported the same basic facts... up to a point.

From there the facts flew out the window as the Salon.com reporter, Glenn Greenwald launched into a long-winded narrative, in essence, accusing me of not only Manning's incarceration, but for lies, conspiracy with the government, and black ops to take down Wikileaks. It was a clever attempt to turn the tables - to put my reputation on trial before the public.

It was not, however, much of a surprise. You see, Mr. Greenwald had showed his unshakable bias long before talking to me -- or even initiating correspondence -- in an interview with Democracy Now in which he slammed me as being "mentally ill," a strong pejorative. It seemed strange for someone who claims to have a passion for the truth to make such personal attacks on me, without having first given me a chance to share my perspective. But Greenwald seemed to have no qualms about hurling vehemence at me -- in a following Twitter post, Greenwald expressed his "blinding contempt" - and as we see here, his contempt appears to have been blinding indeed.

This is not the first time that Greenwald's love/hate relationship with the truth has attracted attention. See the the references I provide later in this piece to better understand my severe skepticism of Greenwald's ability to handle facts.

Greenwald certainly claims his report to be propped up with scores of unnamed sources - and at least one (and only one) source willing to go on the record. In an e-mail to me, he writes:

"As I'm sure you know, I could fill a mid-sized phone book with the names of other people who say exactly the same thing as Appelbaum said about you."

The Appelbaum in question is Jacob Appelbaum, who on the face of things is an independent source concerned for the common good, and coincidentally that only source from that mid-sized phone book willing to go on record. In the Salon piece, he acts as Greenwald's hatchet man, remarking:

"He basically destroyed a 22-year-old's life in order to get his name mentioned on the Wired.com blog," and characterizing me as a "low-level, inconsequential hacker with an insatiable need for self-promotion and media attention ..."

Unfortunately, the appearance of that source turned out to be suspiciously convenient. Described in the Salon article as "a well-known hacker of the Tor Project who has known Lamo for years," Appelbaum has other associations - namely as a high-level volunteer for Wikileaks.org, who has personally met with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (who started the site with documents stolen via the above-mentioned Tor Project) and has been tracked to the same location as Assange as recently as this year. And it's clear that Assange and Appelbaum share a huge vested interest in trying to discredit me and exonerate Manning, with Assange even allegedly sending Wikileaks.org lawyers to try to defend Manning.

Greenwald's failure to properly research and disclose this conflict of interest on the part of a source - a source that I hadn't socialized with for the better part of a decade - is less surprising when you consider Greenwald's apparent history of deception. He defends himself saying:

"His relationship with WikiLeaks and Assange is and was both unknown to me and totally irrelevant to the point on which I quoted him, and his work for the Tor Project, though equally irrelevant, is something I cited."

Irrelevant, perhaps, if not for the use of Tor to acquire classified documents in the founding days of Wikileaks. The associations are suspicious to say the least. It would appear the only responsible operational security policy would be to limit Appelbaum's access to Tor infrastructure until his loyalties can be vetted. And one would perhaps naively hope that any journalist using him as a source would research these ties before rushing to print.

The first time I heard of Salon.com was almost 11 years ago to this day, when I was contacted by a reporter for the site who had questions about an Internet presence I ran called Inside AOL. Looking back on the story today, the article quaintly relates pulling up search results on Hotbot.com, a search engine I only vaguely remember. I'm also fairly sure that my dad has more hits than the 440 Salon cited then for "AOL Sucks" (today Google lists 158,000.)

I felt that article was fair and balanced. I was left with a positive impression of Salon. (http://bit.ly/cExRdQ)

Four years later, I was sitting in an uncomfortable chair in Salon's conference room in San Francisco, explaining to them how I'd hacked their premium subscriber database, helping myself to all their passwords and subscriber information. (That information has since been destroyed to protect the confidentiality of Salon subscribers, but I have no reason to believe that my security suggestions were taken seriously.)

It'd be a novel idea, I suggested, for Salon to report on their own hacking. Salon enthusiastically agreed, only to welch several months later. They were having cash flow problems, they explained. To me the unspoken message seemed clear -- transparency on this issue would not be helpful in solving those problems. So Salon.com never told its readers that it failed to prevent the compromise of their secure data.

Against my personal judgement, I kept their secret until now. It would be another seven years before the words "transparency" and "Salon.com" were to prove as hard to mix as oil and water once more.

Seven years later, Greenwald, who has a passion for Brazilian culture, travel, and fiction, went on to demonstrate that his allocution of blinding contempt for me was seemingly one of the most honest things he's said in print on this issue.

Greenwald writes that in the course of chatting with PFC. Manning, I "then proceeded to question Manning for days as he met with federal agents, leading to Manning's detention." Manning, in fact, did most of the talking, as the published logs readily indicate. I was at no point coached or instructed by federal agents - the conversations took a natural course, with occasional manifestations of my innate curiosity. But this allegation, too, is excusable; those not acquainted with the truth are rarely equipped to recognize it.

Indeed, this projection is evident in Greenwald's statement that:

"A definitive understanding of what really happened is virtually impossible to acquire, largely because almost everything that is known comes from a single, extremely untrustworthy source: Lamo himself."

There are two major problems with this statement. First Greenwald certainly pretends an understanding of events that he wasn't present for, leading me to wonder who exactly gave him such a trustworthy accounting - Manning not being available due to exigent circumstances.

Secondly, Greenwald has decided all by his lonesome that I'm untrustworthy, and then proceeds to run with the concept as though an actual trustworthy source had presented the idea as fact. Were I to say that Greenwald is a pathological liar, I'd at least have source material to point to. Also, see my source material stating the same in the references below.

In fact, any reader can review the thousands of articles which have cited me as a source, and not find any reference referring to me as extremely untrustworthy (unless they were quoting Greenwald's attempt to manufacture reality.) Not even moderately untrustworthy. Or even prone to mild exaggeration.

Greenwald, on the other hand, who holds himself out as a journalist, is in reality a writer of opinion, according to several published sources. And at least one of these sources has accused Greenwald of making up source material. As seen at http://bit.ly/drXCqM, one blogger writes of one of Greenwald's posts:

"Absolutely none of this rubbish is in evidence in my post. Greenwald, purely and simply, lied. Made up a fantasy. Attributed to me imaginary feelings that I do not have, and statements that I did not make. L. I. E. D. I'd call it a straw man argument, but it doesn't even have that much integrity."

At http://bit.ly/atmh73, Greenwald is called a "nihilist provocateur" for allegedly dividing the Democratic Party with his would-be journalistic op-ed pieces. I mean, seriously folks - to get back to the topic at hand, the original article writes like it thinks it's serious journalism, yet only manages to cite a single source, one that is tied to the offended party - and bases the rest on innuendo and conspiracy theories. This is the guy you'd start edging away from at the party if he began spouting this sort of stuff. For instance, he goes on to claim:

"... exactly what the U.S. Government wanted to happen in order to destroy WikiLeaks has happened here: news reports that a key WikiLeaks source has been identified and arrested, followed by announcements from anonymous government officials that there is now a worldwide "manhunt" for its Editor-in-Chief."

This language seemingly infers that the whole thing was staged. That I colluded to conspire with Kevin Lee Poulsen, the federal government, and who knows who else to somehow engineer this entire affair in order to give Wikileaks a black eye.

Greenwald's wildly paranoid theories, which he voices in the article, seem to presuppose the U.S. government to be incredibly stupid. Really, if the government wanted to set up Wikileaks, would using two of the most infamous ex-hackers in the free world exactly be the most subtle way to do it?

Let's clear this up now, friends and neighbors. I am not now, nor have I ever been, in the thrall or employ of the federal government, be it as a confidential informant, a special agent, or a janitor.

If anyone was engineering plans here, in fact, it seems likely to be Greenwald. As described at http://bit.ly/daTCUg, Greenwald has a noted history of using "sock puppets", or fake accounts, to defend himself and praise his own work. Who's the deceptive one here, again?

Glenn Greenwald first contacted me via Twitter, attempting from the get-go to play me as the original rube. The blinding contempt post was a good thing, he asserted. His public bias encouraged transparency, Greenwald alleged.

I would hear a lot about transparency, but encounter precious little of it. He's refused to answer my questions about somehow, out of all the sources in the world, ending up with a Wikileaks staffer on the phone explaining to him why the guy who outed one of Wikileaks' agents-in-place was the bad guy.

During an hour-long phone conversation, I politely explained the events of the Manning case. Little or none of my explanation ended up in the finished article. What parts did, were spun like a tweaker on payday.

I invite readers to listen to the audio of the interview and use Google to research me. Draw your own conclusions. Don't let them be drawn for you by a man who was discussing how he'd judged a man well before he ever spoke to him, and wasn't about to let facts get in the way of a good hatchet piece. Think for yourselves. Watch my documentary, Hackers Wanted. Read articles with some actual neutrality. Research Greenwald's character for yourselves. But above all, judge based on facts, not innuendo and manufactured reality.

I wish I had some pithy signoff to put here. I don't. I'm just a guy trying to set the record straight - a pissed off guy, to be sure . But if some of you were willing to listen, then putting this to paper will have been worth it.

Thanks for reading.

/s/

Adrian Lamo (adrian[at]adrian.org)
San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
03 July 2010

-----

Adrian Lamo is a journalist, threat analyst, and former hacker. His intrusions included Microsoft, The New York Times Co., and Salon.com. He is reachable via e-mail at adrian[at]adrian.org.

Date: Mon, 05 Jul 2010 12:21:34 -0700
From: Adrian Lamo
To: ggreenwald[at]salon.com
Subject: Re: blinded by contempt 2b FINAL

Dear Mr. Greenwald,

Your hair-splitting shows a deep-seated fear of running my reply. You cite no credible facts in your story - and I use story in the traditional sense, of a fictional narrative - so there are none to waste time responding to.

What's remains is innuendo, which can most readily be impeached by showing that you, Mr. Greenwald, have a history of deceiving, inveigling, and onfuscating. That's exactly what I've done. This is within the terms of your offer.

Indeed, by item (b) you show yourself a base liar, confirming, to my regret, the suggestions I make in my article. You had a chance here to convince the eventual readers that you had some truth in you. You've instead behaved exactly as I expected.

Well, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. You still have a chance to prove you can be trusted here.

With Regret,

Adrian Lamo

On 10-07-05 11:56 AM, ggreenwald[at]salon.com wrote:

> "Any statement you want to make" was part of my offer for you to correct inaccuracies, not for you to ramble on whatever topics struck your fancy. Feel free to try to convince people that what you understood from my offer was: "write up anything you want on any topic and, no matter how unrelated it is to the article, I'll publish it at Salon."
>
> Your inability to identify any inaccuracies in what I wrote means (a) that my article was accurate in its entirety and (b) I've discharged the terms of my offer to you.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Adrian Lamo"
> To: ggreenwald[at]salon.com
> Sent: Monday, July 5, 2010 3:46:30 PM (GMT-0300) Auto-Detected
> Subject: Re: blinded by contempt 2b FINAL
>
> I'm sorry, but that's just not true. I've downloaded the audio into MP3
> format, just in cast, and you explicitly generalize. "Any statement that
> you (I) want to make."
>
> Well, you've got my statement, Mr. Gtreenwald. And now you're explicitly
> lying. You made an offer you obviously didn't believe I'd accept in
> full, and now it's time to accept responsibility.
>
> You can man up and do what you said you'd do, or see it run elsewhere,
> with the more damning addendum that you've welched on your word. What
> /can/ you be trusted on, Mr. Greenwald? I suggest you establish a
> beachhead in that area here.
>
> Very Sincerely Yours,
> Adrian Lamo
>
>
> On 10-07-05 07:54 AM, ggreenwald[at]salon.com wrote:

>> Adrian - When you asked me to provide you with approval rights for the quotes I intended to use from our interview, I explicitly refused, but told you that if you believe there were any factual inaccuracies in what I wrote or distortions of what you said, you could submit a statement identifying them and I would publish your statement along with whatever I wrote.
>>
>> What you submitted to me, two weeks later, has nothing to do with that. You don't even purport to identify any factual inaccuracies in what I wrote. Instead, you trolled the lowest sewers of the right-wing blogosphere (Ace of Spaces, Megan McArdle, the 2006 version of Little Green Footballs) for years-old insults and false accusations made about me that are completely unrelated to the subject of the piece I wrote about you.
>>
>> If there are any factual inaccuracies in what I wrote about you and our interview, the offer still stands for you to identify them in a statement, which I will publish along with what I wrote.
>>
>> Glenn Greenwald
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Adrian Lamo"
>> To: ggreenwald[at]salon.com, "jason mick" , adrian[at]2600.COM
>> Sent: Sunday, July 4, 2010 3:57:37 AM (GMT-0300) Auto-Detected
>> Subject: blinded by contempt 2b FINAL
>>
>>
>> Fixed some typos and style issues. Three before midnight, Salon HQ time!
>>
>> <3,
>> A
>>

[FastTadpole]

Greenwald was hardly impartial but that was a weak defence on Lamo's part.

"A definitive understanding of what really happened is virtually impossible to acquire, largely because almost everything that is known comes from a single, extremely untrustworthy source: Lamo himself."

In the interview he is evasive and conflicts previous statements. Bottom line I'd never divulge info via WikiLeaks, if I saw Lamo on call display I'd change my number, Bradley Manning is gagged in prison and all these guys are trying to make a name for themselves off of him. Maybe the whole thing is orchestrated, reminds me of a bad scripted 'reality' show. Further comment only when I hear from Manning, although he'll likely be traumatized.

[h3rm35]

I don't think we'll be hearing from him very soon.
http://www.salon.com/print.html?URL=/pol...ak_charges

Quote:Military pressing charges against helicopter strike video leaker
By Alex Pareene

*

Military pressing charges against helicopter strike video leaker
AP

Pvt. Bradley Manning faces criminal charges for allegedly leaking a classified video to WikiLeaks. The video showed a 2007 Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians. Manning also supposedly leaked video of a civilian massacre by American aircraft in Afghanistan as well as thousands of diplomatic cables. The charges are for "transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system."

It's never been clear how Manning gained access to all the classified material. Also still unclear are the roles and motives of self-promoting hacker Adrian Lamo -- whom Manning "confessed" to -- and Wired magazine's Kevin Poulsen, who published the Lamo/Manning chatlogs. For background on the case you can't do better than this comprehensive post from Glenn Greenwald....

[FastTadpole]

An analysis of the alleged charges levied at US military whistleblower Bradley Manning and The potential legal repercussions he face for his role in leaking the WikiLeaks 'Collateral Murder' video and documents, including 50 classified US Dept. of State cables, a powerpoint file and the "Reykjavik 13" cable, still presumably held by Julian Assange*.

It summarizes the potential jail time, fines and penalties that Bradley Manning faces, if proven guilty by a military court of law, according to each charge he is being prosecuted for.

Analysis: Bradley Manning Charges - WikiLeaks 'Collateral Murder' Leak
http://www.bradleymanning.org/3167/the-c...-analysis/
http://digg.com/politics/Bradley_Manning...urder_Leak

* My bad, I was editorializing and ignorant: "Reykjavik 13" cable available at: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Classified_cab...3_Jan_2010

This sure didn't get much attention though, maybe in Iceland. As for the other files and the ppt presentation I would appreciate more information as to their release.

[FastTadpole]

Noticed a few more pro Wikileaks videos up on the Tracker lately..

TED - Julian Assange - Why the World Needs WikiLeaks (July, 2010)
http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-details.php?id=18442

WikiLeaks - Most Dangerous Man
http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-details.php?id=18157

ABC Foreign Correspondent - Truth or Dare - Wikileaks (2010)
http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-details.php?id=17988

.. that prompted this forum comment.

Julian Assange, "The most dangerous Man in America", on the TED stage where globalists and eugenicists, like Bill Gates and this guy, frequent and spout their message freely.

Now, if you had a secret document or video that the world had to see. What would you do to get it out. Send it to Wikileaks? Or post it up on a forum like the CLimateGate files? It'd be nice to have 1000s of encrypted sites like WikiLeaks or if everyone used encryption on communications by default. I spoke with a military encryption specialist about this and he says that anything encrypted is picked apart from cell phone talks (2bit), to Skype (64bit), to SSL websites (128bit), to Blowfish encrypted files. Everything else gets carnivored and flagged for keywords.

All this media is going out proclaiming WikiLeaks is 'us' when really it is 'them'. They throw us a bone here and there, but I can't trust them anymore than Time Magazine and ABC News which have plugged him.

He admittedly holds stuff back be it the 50 classified cables from Manning (can't find anything on these really) to timing releases of a lot of the stuff he sits, to dictatorially declaring that it is fake. I'm sure there is disinfo being passed on to WIkiLeaks but leave it to us to decide what is misinfo, thank you very much

I totally agree with the principle and idea of WikiLeaks but that's all window dressing.

By seeing him on TED talking freely when he supposedly has a CIA hit on him that forced him underground, only to come back out a couple of months (if that) later, I am now convinced WikiLeaks is a honey pot.

[FastTadpole]

Originally posted here by nik. But it's relevant to this thread too. Emphasis added.

Quote:Wikileaks' estranged co-founder becomes a critic (Q&A)
July 20, 2010 1:40 PM PDT
by Declan McCullagh

NEW YORK--John Young was one of Wikileaks' early founders. Now he's one of the organization's more prominent critics.

Young, a 74-year-old architect who lives in Manhattan, publishes a document-leaking Web site called Cryptome.org that predates Wikileaks by over a decade. He's drawn fire from Microsoft after posting leaked internal documents about police requests, irked the U.K. government for disclosing the names of possible spies, and annoyed Homeland Security by disclosing a review of Democratic National Convention security measures.

Cryptome's history of publicizing leaks--while not yielding to pressure to remove them--is what led Young to be invited to join Wikileaks before its launch over three years ago. He also agreed to be the public face of the organization by listing his name on the domain name registration.

Operating a Web site to post leaked documents isn't very expensive (Young estimates he spends a little over $100 a month for Cryptome's server space). So when other Wikileaks founders started to talk about the need to raise $5 million and complained that an initial round of publicity had affected "our delicate negotiations with the Open Society Institute and other funding bodies," Young says, he resigned from the effort.

In the last few weeks, after the arrest of Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning cast a brighter spotlight on Wikileaks, Young has been trying to trace Wikileaks' money flows. On July 17, Wikileaks asked supporters for $200,000 to pay for Mannings' attorneys, even though co-founder Julian Assange said a few days earlier that the organization had already raised $1 million.

CNET caught up with Young at the Next HOPE hacker conference here last weekend, where he was attending the Wikileaks keynote speech. Following is a transcript made from a recorded interview with Young, lightly edited for space.

Q: How many hours a day or days a week do you spend on Cryptome?

Young: Well, it varies. When I'm doing professional practice work, it's very little. I just answer e-mail and when something hot comes in, I'll put it up. Most of my time is spent on my architectural practice. So I do Cryptome between when I have time to get to it. It's by no means a full-time activity.

What you're doing sounds a lot like what Wikileaks is doing, no?

Young: Only superficially, Declan, because, and we can talk more about this, I initially thought that was what they were going to be doing when I first agreed to participate. But it became clear right away that they were going to set up an operation with multiple people involved. So the first difference is that I don't run an operation. I don't have any people working on this. This is strictly--and I like the term myself, but other people hate it--it's strictly an amateur version.

It's not like Wikileaks and their grand goals. I've never had any desire to overturn governments or do any of these noble things that they want to do. Or jack up journalism. This was just a way to get certain kinds of documents out to the public.

And so when they explained the amount of money they were going to try to raise, that was the basis for parting company with them. I thought it was going to be more like Cryptome, which is a collective of people contributing their time to it and not a centralized operation raising lots of money. Cryptome is not into that kind of thing. We parted company at that point. We're still not like Wikileaks in that we don't do any promotional work for our activities.

Who were the other Wikileaks founders?

Young: I'm not going to talk about those. I'll say Julian (Assange) was clearly there. I elected to conceal those names when I published these messages. And I think it's basically a violation of Cryptome's policy--to publish the names of people who do not want to be identified.

You had a falling-out with the other Wikileaks founders?

Young: Yes. But it was over this: someone said that the initial goal was $5 million. That caught my attention. One, because I think the type of stuff I was going to publish, you should never do it for money. Only because that contaminates the credibility and it turns it into a business opportunity where there's great treachery and lying going on.

And it will contaminate Wikileaks. It always does. In fact, that's the principal means by which noble endeavors are contaminated, the money trail. That's pretty obvious. I happen to think that amateur stuff is better than paid stuff.

How long were you involved before you resigned?

Young: Not long. A few weeks. It wasn't long. However, one of the things that happened is that somehow I got subscribed to that list under another nym and the messages kept coming in. I got to keep reading what they were saying about me after they booted me off. The messages kept coming in. So I published those too.

Did they criticize you for, well, leaking about Wikileaks?

Young: They certainly did. They accused me of being an old fart and jealous. And all these things that come up, that typically happen when someone doesn't like you. That's okay. I know you would never do that and journalists never do that, but ordinary people do this all the time.

Because journalism is a noble profession in all its guises?
Young: That's right. And there's no back-biting there.

Over the years you've been running Cryptome, you've had some encounters with federal agencies. What visits did you have and what were the agents concerned about?

Young: They were most concerned that we published lists. The names of spies. That was the first issue that brought us to their attention. There was a request, so we were told, from one of the British intelligence people to have that list removed.

And did you remove it?

Young: No. And not only that, but the FBI was always very polite. They said you've done nothing illegal, we're not pursuing a criminal investigation. These are just courtesies we're offering other governments. We had one with the Brits and one with the Japanese that brought them to our door.

You had no other interaction with, say, Homeland Security?

Young: The other was when we started our eyeball series of publishing photos. That brought one visit and one phone call. But again, they were polite and said there's nothing illegal about this. They never used a negative term. They just said the issue has been raised with us.

And by the way, I did a FOIA trying to get records of these visits, but I could never find anything. I did get business cards, though, and I asked for ID. They were very polite and gave me business cards and I published all that. They asked me not to publish their names. But what the hell, Declan, what else do I have to go with?

So if you've been publishing sensitive government information for so long, why have you not had the same encounters that Wikileaks has had? [Ed. Note: Wikileaks has claimed its representatives have been harassed by U.S. government agents.]

Young: I don't think they've had any encounters. That's bogus. But that's okay. I know a lot of people who talk about how the government's after them. It's a fairly well-worn path. You know it from your own field. It remains to be seen whether any of this stuff holds up or not.

One of the tests is: unless you go to jail, it's all bogus. When I go to jail, you'll say he actually did it, finally. He came up with something that offended someone. So far that hasn't happened, no indictments or anything. These polite visits are the closest I've come.

Professionals are going to have nothing to do with Wikileaks, as you probably know if you check around. People who know security will not have anything to do with Wikileaks. But the public will.

Wikileaks pledges to maintain the confidentiality of sources and stressed that in the presentation over the weekend. Do you offer your contributors the same guarantee?

Young: No. That's just a pitch. You cannot provide any security over the Internet, much less any other form of communication. We actually post periodically warnings not to trust our site. Don't believe us. We offer no protection. You're strictly on your own.

We also say don't trust anyone who offers you protection, whether it's the U.S. government or anybody else. That's a story they put out. It's repeated to people who are a little nervous. They think they can always find someone to protect them. No, you can't. You've got to protect yourself. You know where I learned that? From the cypherpunks.

So Wikileaks cannot protect people. It's so leaky. It's unbelievable how leaky it is as far as security goes. But they do have a lot of smoke blowing on their site. Page after page after page about how they're going to protect you.

And I say, oh-oh. That's over-promising. The very over-promising is an indication that it doesn't work. And we know that from watching the field of intelligence and how governments operate. When they over-promise, you know they're hiding something. People who are really trustworthy do not go around broadcasting how trustworthy I am.

It sounds like you've become more critical of Wikileaks over time.

Young: It's not just them. It's also that they're behaving like untrustworthy organizations. So yes, if the shoe fits, fine.

I don't want to limit this to Wikileaks, but yes, they're acting like a cult. They're acting like a religion. They're acting like a government. They're acting like a bunch of spies. They're hiding their identity. They don't account for the money. They promise all sorts of good things. They seldom let you know what they're really up to. They have rituals and all sorts of wonderful stuff. So I admire them for their showmanship and their entertainment value. But I certainly would not trust them with information if it had any value, or if it put me at risk or anyone that I cared about at risk.

Nevertheless, it's a fascinating development that's come along, to monetize this kind of thing. That's what they're up to. You start with free samples.

You've been trying to follow some of Wikileaks' money flows. You contacted the German charity and posted their response. They said they're going to have some information to you perhaps in early August. Does that make you feel any better about the money trail?

Young: No. To clarify, they're going to publish it on their Web site. They said, "you could mirror it or point to it." So it's not just for me.

But it's only a tiny sliver of what Wikileaks claims it's raised. whether Wikileaks has raised a million dollars as they've claimed, or whether they're trying to prime the pump, I don't know. (German charity) Wal Holland has only handled a very tiny amount of this, and they've said that, "We know nothing about the rest."

I notice that Wikileaks is touting the revelation that's going to come. But it doesn't fit the claims that Wikileaks is making about how much it's raised. There's nothing wrong with that. People exaggerate all the time for effect. So back to why I admire Wikileaks: they've got chutzpah.

What do you think of Wikileaks' spat with Adrian Lamo? You've been publishing some of the correspondence.

Young: None of the stuff that Lamo has made available has been verified. Early on, I said chat logs can be forged, you can make this stuff up. So far there's nothing of substance here. It's a story that's being played. I'm not seeing any credible information that this story has any substance at all other than as a story.

It's being treated almost as if there's something of substance here because the chat logs have come out. But I've not seen any verification. And chat logs are notoriously (easy to) forge by authorities and other people, as with other digital stuff. So I don't know whether there's anything to this or not. But I'm following it because it's kind of a test of how gullible people can be with a good story. And all frauds work that way.

And I think Wikileaks is wary too. I think they're not sure that anything's actually happened here or if they're not being sucked into a trap.

The kind of sacred character of these chat logs is weird. I don't know why anyone believes these have any genuine quality at all, just because Lamo allegedly handed them over.

I saw the two e-mail messages that you sent to Adrian Lamo. Have you received a response to your questions? [Ed. Note: Lamo, an ex-hacker, says he tipped off authorities that Manning was leaking classified information.]

Young: Not yet, no. I don't know if I will. But those are questions I would have liked to have asked at (Sunday afternoon's) panel. Except there was no time.

There's lots of interesting things going on if this is a genuine investigation. And since Lamo said (he would be) transparent so everyone would know what was happening, well, I happen to believe the whole legal thing should be transparent too. That was the basis of my questions.

If you want to get transparent, really get transparent. And don't let the feds tell you what you can and cannot do. There are some interesting issues here because the feds don't want this stuff to become public and yet they haven't kept him from talking. So let's see how far he goes. We'd all like to know more about how this is actually working.

There was suspicion from day one that this was entrapment run by someone unknown to suck a number of people into a trap. So we actually don't know. But it's certainly a standard counterintelligence technique. And they're usually pretty elaborate and pretty carefully run. They'll even prosecute people as part of the cover story. That actually was talked about at (Sunday's) panel. They'll try to conceal who was informing and betraying others by pretending to prosecute them.

How do you expect this affair to resolve itself? Do you expect Manning to be sentenced to a significant prison term?
Young: I don't think so. Based on what I have seen so far, and these so-called State Department cables, as someone said on (Sunday's) panel, does anyone know if they actually exist? The answer is no. Nobody knows if these exist or not. The videos are not terribly incriminating. The cables seem to be what's being plumped as a crucial thing, but we don't know if they exist or not.

http://digg.com/people/Estranged_wikilea..._interview
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20011106-281.html

[FastTadpole]

Quote:Wikileaks Founder "Annoyed" At 9/11 Theories

therightperspective.org — Conspiracy theorists have begun developing their own ideas about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange after he said in a recent interview that he is annoyed at false conspiracy theories surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

http://digg.com/world_news/Wikileaks_Fou...1_Theories
http://www.therightperspective.org/2010/...-theories/

I think it's also because he's marketing the Leak brand to mainstream and this was a better hook. He blew his cover good lately on the whole Bradley Manning thing. John Young (Cryptome) Wikileaks was in talks to arrange funding with OSI (George Soros). ABC, Time Magazine and CNN et al love him. Assange is the Pentagon's 'Most Wanted Man in America' but he's making TV appearances. The CIA can catch a 14 year old girl downloading Lady Gaga on BitTorrent but they can't pop by a TV studio they have close connections with and pick up Assange .. ok. Who's buying this crap?

Another angle of this is that all this high profile leaking is a threat to national security so they are giving it play to justify programs like CYBERCOM, Internet Journalism Liscences and the RealID.

Also Wikileaks has reportedly raised close to $1M for Bradley Manning's defence. The Manning camp hasn't seen a dime.

A couple of great shows on this with Jack Blood on Deadline Live recently:

John Young (Cryptome) Talks About Wikileaks
http://deadlinelive.info/2010/08/03/dead...st-2-2010/
.. also a really good interview with Michael Shaw of http://freedomadvocates.org/ in the second hour on the Agenda 21, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development agenda. I'm working on putting some stuff together with him soon.

Wayne Madsen (Madsen Report) on Wikileaks
http://deadlinelive.info/2010/08/04/dead...st-3-2010/

Related:

What is Wikileaks?
A little more glossed over history, I liked John Young's version better
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367103,00.asp

Chinese cyber-dissidents launch WikiLeaks, a site for whistleblowers
Early AFP Promo - January 11, 2007 - 7:35AM
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Technology...82315.html

MIT students helped WikiLeaks suspect, hacker says
.. better get more security, maybe chip the students?
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapc...tml?hpt=T1

[h3rm35]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e26108.htm

Pfc. Manning and the Value of Truth

By Ray McGovern

Editor’s Note: Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern spoke at a rally on Sunday in support of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the young soldier who is alleged to have given classified material to WikiLeaks, including a 2007 video showing a U.S. helicopter gunship cavalierly mowing down a dozen Iraqi men, including two Reuters journalists.

While an intelligence specialist in Baghdad, Manning is also suspected of copying the 92,000 Afghan War documents that WikiLeaks passed on to three news organizations: the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel. WikiLeaks also posted about 75,000 of them at its own Web site.

Manning is currently detained by the U.S. military at Quantico, Virginia, where the rally was held. The rally was sponsored by Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and The Courage to Resist. The mayor of the small town, Iris Tharp, issued a permit for the rally at a municipal park along the Potomac River after the Marines denied permission.

The following are McGovern’s remarks:

August 09, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- We are living in a liminal time, that is to say we live on the threshold. So much that we have taken for granted is passing.

In times like this we must be careful to keep our bearings, lest we come to love the chaos that passes for reality.

This is why we need to honor our brother Bradley Manning. He was not afraid to face the unknown; not afraid to resist the seduction of conformity; not afraid to follow his conscience, AND not afraid to give us the wherewithal to distinguish truth from lies so that we, too, can follow our conscience.

The principalities and the powers, including the Fawning Corporate Media, have no hold on citizens like Private Manning, who refuse to live in a moral vacuum.

Bradley Manning dared to mock the falsity parading as reality after our country had a nervous breakdown as a result of 9/11 and the efforts of those who would use 9/11 to stoke our fear.

THAT false “reality” has lost its power, because it cannot live in the light of truth.

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” THAT is the rock-solid truth.

I noticed that this Bible verse was chiseled into the marble wall of CIA Headquarters when I began working as an analyst there in April 1963. That was the same month that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. penned a “Letter From the Birmingham City Jail,” including graphic, earthy words in describing our duty to expose deceit and injustice:

“Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

What Private Manning is alleged to have done with the help of WikiLeaks is to puncture that boil of injustice and deceit.

Our Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs Chairman do not mind the blood on their hands — yes, on THEIR hands — not the hands of Manning or WikiLeaks. The Pentagon chiefs are but cogs in an imperial system; large-diameter cogs, but cogs nonetheless.

They have made their peace with the crimson red on their hands. What they do mind is the pus. Pus stinks — it stinks to high heaven and is more quickly smelled and pungent than blood.

We have no problem with Marines and soldiers who are taught to believe they must surrender their conscience to some kind of noble enterprise. We do have a BIG PROBLEM with those who send them off on missions that make the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a model of military planning.

Worse still, the gun-barrel video that WikiLeaks posted and titled “Collateral Murder” shows the degree to which our own soldiers have been brutalized by so-called Rules of Engagement that authorize them to brutalize others.

Our Secretary of Defense had not one word of regret about the dozen human beings, including two employees of Reuters, murdered on that fateful day in July 2007 — or about the now-fatherless children who were seriously wounded.

It is THAT kind of thing that needs to be exposed. And it is that video that Private Manning is accused of giving to WikiLeaks.

The more recent WikiLeaks disclosures expose much more. Did most Americans know, for example, that Washington is giving one billion dollars a year of our tax money to Pakistan; and that Pakistan turns around and uses some of that money to train, equip, and lead those who are killing our Marines and soldiers in Afghanistan?

Do Americans understand that, as far as our supposed “ally” Pakistan is concerned, the main game is about keeping the Taliban strong, in order to ensure that India does not regain predominant influence in Afghanistan?

What WikiLeaks has released is documentary evidence of what is really going on — otherwise known as the truth.

Pentagon and press protest the “granularity” of the documentary evidence. The appropriate word here is not “granularity” — the appropriate words are blood, fecklessness, and the absence of any common sense, including moral sense, in the Pentagon and, sadly, in the White House.

We are here today to help Private Manning lance the boil and to do what we can to help the pus flow freely. We are here to give him encouragement to keep living humanly, as we are trying to do, among the fallen powers.

We are here to say thank you and to tell Bradley Manning, loud and clear, “You are not alone. You are not alone.”

This item was first published at consortiumnews.com

[FastTadpole]

Quote:Wikileaks Abandoned, Manning Left Out to Dry
7.10.10 / 2pm


According to wikileaks insiders, the Wikileaks project is being abandoned. Apparently Assange is out of donation money to fund his stints at hotel bars in Iceland. It seems that it isn’t safe to trust Assange or Lamo with a sippycup full of water. These are the same ones who publicly and openly announced that they are “hackers” responsible for releasing documents that imply the need for immediate social and political action. Yet they aren’t being touched. Lamo (and how’s that for a pun) is the “hacker” snitch that turned Manning in to the FBI. Of course, one can only assume that he’s an agent himself. The ease with which he met with and reported Manning to some of the highest-ranking authorities, yet the fact that Wikileaks or the ones behind it remain untouched, speaks tons for the reality of this situation. Assange offers personal addresses to entire groups of the EU Parliament, yet no one will touch the guy. Who are the real disinformation agents? Assange and Lamo don’t work for the people or the common good. Read all about how five figures of donation money was unaccounted for after Assange got a hold of it. String Lamo up in the street by his balls and we can all line up and beat him like a pinata.

A sends via PGPboard, 10 July 2010:

Quote: WIKILEAKS WEBSITE TO BE ABANDONED

Within the last few hours we have learned that WIKILEAKS (Assange) will commit no more time and effort into restoring our website http://www.wikileaks.org .

The website has been effectively down in terms of document submissions for many weeks, and as we speak there is no way for the general public or potential whistleblowers to upload documents to the site.

We have been told that WIKILEAKS will be launching a completely new site hosted in Iceland. However, Assange would not provide any time lines, or any indication of user options and facilities.

During the exchange, Assange also confirmed that no legal team had been provided to Manning, and no one from WIKILEAKS had met Manning during his detention in Kuwait. This was completely at odds with recent WIKILEAKS emails requesting $50,000 in donor funding for a legal team to fly to Kuwait.

Wikileaks Insider

Authentication Code omitted.

One can only deduce that with media propagandist sponsorship, Wikileaks was more of a facade than anything. Good luck to all the “anonymous” submitters. Hopefully our whistleblowers remain safe as the internet slowly but surely becomes the most high-tech surveillance system ever implemented.

An expose on the situation can be found here.

Quote:Julian Assange: The Sneakiest Snake (Think Twice Before Donating to Wikileaks or, Question the Real Motive)

It’s time for the games to stop. It’s time to throw this guy under the bus.

In closing, we would like clarify some issues surrounding our website. The Wau Holland Foundation openly criticized Assange for shutting down our Website as a ploy to drive up donor contributions.

We (Insiders) agree with this assessment. However, what is not widely known and understood is that the secure document submission page was deliberately disabled by Assange in order to prevent third parties uploading any documents leaked by PFC Manning.

The entire spiel can be found here.

Click here to learn more about Wikisnakes.

http://panoptimist.againstnwo.com/2010/0...al-motive/

Related Thread: Hidden Intelligence Operation Behind the Wikileaks Release of “Secret” Documents
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=34628


BEST ARTICLE ON THE MANNING WIKILEAKS LAMO SITUATION
Greenwald's article is put to shame
Too BIG to Post DL the PDF (attached) or read it from the online source @ http://finemrespice.com/node/88

[FastTadpole]

Greenwald follows up with another update but from a different angle. Will Bradley Manning supporters be added to the ever expanding definition of "terrorists"?

Quote:Government harassing and intimidating Bradley Manning supporters
Tuesday, Nov 9, 2010 15:10 ET

(updated below - Update II)

In July of this year, U.S. citizen Jacob Appelbaum, a researcher and spokesman for WikiLeaks, was detained for several hours at the Newark airport after returning from a trip to Holland, and had his laptop, cellphones and other electronic products seized -- all without a search warrant, without being charged with a crime, and without even being under investigation, at least to his knowledge. He was interrogated at length about WikiLeaks, and was told by the detaining agents that he could expect to be subjected to the same treatment every time he left the country and attempted to return to the U.S. Days later, two FBI agents approached him at a computer conference he was attending in New York and asked to speak with him again. To date, he has never been charged with any crime or even told he's under investigation for anything; this was clearly a thuggish attempt by federal officials to intimidate any American citizen involved with or supporting WikiLeaks.

That campaign of intimidation is now clearly spreading to supporters of Bradley Manning. Last Wednesday, November 3, David House, a 23-year-old researcher who works at MIT, was returning to the U.S. from a short vacation with his girlfriend in Mexico, and was subjected to similar and even worse treatment. House's crime: he did work in helping set up the Bradley Manning Support Network, an organization created to raise money for Manning's legal defense fund, and he has now visited Manning three times in Quantico, Virginia, where the accused WikiLeaks leaker is currently being detained (all those visits are fully monitored by government agents). Like Appelbaum, House has never been accused of any crime, never been advised that he's under investigation, and was never told by any federal agents that he's suspected of any wrongdoing at all.

Last Wednesday, House arrived at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and his flight was met in the concourse by customs agents, who examined the passports of all deplaning passengers until they saw House's, at which point they stopped. He was then directed to Customs, where his and his girlfriend's bags were extensively searched. After the search was complete, two men identifying themselves as Homeland Security officials told House and his girlfriend they were being detained for questioning and would miss their connecting flight. House was told that he was required to relinquish all of his electronic products, and thus gave them his laptop, cellphone, digital camera and UBS flash drive. The document he received itemizing his seized property is here. He was also told to give the agents all of his passwords and encryption keys, which he refused to do.

House was then taken to a detention room by two armed agents and on his way there, he passed by a room in which several individuals were plugging various instruments into his laptop and cellphone. The two agents, Marcial Santiago and Darin Louck, proceeded to question him for 90 minutes about why he was visiting Manning in prison, what work he did to support the Manning campaign, who else was involved in the Manning support group, and what his views were on WikiLeaks. He was told that he would not receive his laptop or camera back, and the agents kept it. To date, he has not received them back and very well may never. When he told them that he had roughly 20 hours of source code work in his laptop and would like to save it or email it to a saved site, they told him he could not do that. He subsequently learned from Agent Santiago that although Agent Louck identified himself as a Homeland Security agent, he is, in fact, with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

What's going on is here obvious. The Federal Government has the authority to conduct border searches of people entering the country that are far broader than for those inside the country, and such searches require no search warrant. The Government has that power in order to prevent security threats from entering the country, but here, they are clearly exploiting and abusing it in order to conduct investigative searches which would ordinarily require a search warrant but for which they have no basis to obtain one (in his effort to justify what he did in turning in Manning, Adrian Lamo -- the least credible person on the planet -- has been attempting to convince federal authorities that WikiLeaks is not merely a publisher of classified information, but an "espionage" ring that affirmatively induces leaks, thus enabling its prosecution; to achieve that, he has repeatedly claimed, without a shred of evidence, that MIT students actively assisted Manning in obtaining and leaking the information; in any event, House is not and never was an MIT student). American citizens who are charged with no crime and not under investigation should not have their laptops permanently seized and searched by law enforcement officials in the absence of reasonable suspicion that they did something wrong.

The real purpose of this conduct is to intimidate and deter anyone from being involved in any way with WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning. And it works. I had been invited to go and speak with Manning at Quantico, and still fully intend to do that -- I think Manning, if he did what he's accused of, is the most heroic political figure of the last decade at least -- but of course incidents like these, as intended, implant in your brain the fear that if you do go visit Manning -- or if you donate money to his legal defense fund, donate to WikiLeaks, or otherwise support them in any manner whatsoever -- then you, too, will be put on some list and have your property seized and searched with no search warrant when entering the country, and otherwise harassed and intimidated by the Executive Branch's police agencies. It's bad enough that the Obama administration has escalated attacks on whistle-blowers through vastly increased prosecutions, but this level of intimidation is clearly targeting legitimate political activity. It now goes far beyond prosecuting whistle-blowers and is intended to harass and deter those who are merely supportive of them.


UPDATE: I just want to underscore how abusive this all is. Totally independent of the intimidation aspects -- which are the worst part of this -- just consider what an absolute mockery this makes of the Constitution. If House (or Appelbaum) had been inside the U.S., the Government would have never have been able to search or seize their laptops because the Fourth Amendment prohibits that behavior without a search warrant, which they obviously can't obtain. So instead, the Government just waits for them to leave the country -- which many many people do these days -- and then seizes their belongings and searches all of their communications upon their return, without a shred of judicial review or any basis to establish wrongdoing. What conceivable purpose is there in having a Fourth Amendment if it can be so easily circumvented this way through the blatant abuse of border searching powers?


UPDATE II: The aforementioned Appelbaum wrote to me tonight: "I still have not had my equipment returned [after four months]. I will no longer travel internationally with anything except clothes in my carry on." Land of the Free.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_...index.html

Weird comment -- posted to incite fear or is it a threat or to provoke violence and paranoia?

Quote:Tuesday, November 9, 2010 06:06 PM ET
Espionage

Own a gun, Glenn?

I'll tell ya'...

I'm just starting to get over the shakes. Those last few days on the job, were the absolute worse.

The non-stop exposure to industrial pollution...it's tough, man. I'm still feeling a little short of breath. It's like a cough, where you can't reach deep down to get the phlegm out.

The protracted and long wheezing...it's tough, man.

I had to really get off that job, I couldn't do another month. It was getting to the point where the sleep deprivation, was tearing me up. The closer and closer I got to the end, the more my body rankled. It's sorta like that feeling where you fall asleep too quick, then you awake with a start. Your breath gets shorter and shorter, your vision narrows, you start to feel the skin go flush, then appendages take on a other-worldly feeling. That's called work, for me.

Because that's what it's like. No sleep. Fatigue.

And the company entrusts you with all that expensive gear, the boss wants you to stretch your limits...in order to get 110%, because the company won't pick up the slack. Won't hire more people, can't FIND people.

So you ask...

...well, should I take full responsibility for the burdens of ill concieved actions of Justice...

No, Glenn. You cannot.

This is not your burden. You visit this man, but he doesn't have much hope.

You post what 'lawyers' become...when the government murders anyone who no longer agrees...with their job security.

Because when the representation becomes the enemy, it's no longer patriotism.

It's fascism.

So you do what you must.

You kill them.

Myself?

I'm already on the list, but I was watched...way before 9/11...so I suppose my enemies, are more to point on where...they stand.

Because they know where they stand with me.

Don't forget I said that...

I told you. It's not your burden. truth is everyone, Mr. Greenwald...not just you. This water from the fountainhead, is not for you...every single day.

Look after yourself first.

—Ra_earth_wind_fire

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...56d8d.html