US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks

[Keith Millea]

Perhaps yes. Add Andrija Puharich's stable of children. I like what Assange is doing, and I hope he prevails. When the US announces someone has "fallen off the radar" when that someone was scheduled to speak in Las Vegas but didn't show, I tend to think he really is a target.

I'm sure that he is a target.I'm also pretty damn sure that the spooks have been trailing him for a long while now,which brings up the thought;They probably know where he is at. :flute:

[Helen Reyes]

Several of the key known military-intel remote viewers were allegedly onetime Scientologist Operating Thetans of very high rank.

See eg here where Helen and I have discussed previously:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...php?t=2453

As Jan's link says, Ingo Swann was a founding member of the Scientology Celebrity Center in Los Angeles. One of the items that emerged from the US raid on Scientology in the 1980s was that the Church was trying to supress all documents relating to Charlie Manson's connexions with that same center. None of which has anything to do with Julian Assange, afaik. Wayne Madsen can probably be relied upon to spin this into a new biography intended to defame Assange as he has attempted in the recent past.

[Helen Reyes]

I'm sure that he is a target.I'm also pretty damn sure that the spooks have been trailing him for a long while now,which brings up the thought;They probably know where he is at. :flute:

It would be pretty damn strange if they didn't know. If he left Australia ostensibly for Las Vegas and then changed his mind, they'd have to know which flights he took. If he didn't leave Australia, they'd know that as well.

[Peter Presland]

Away from the connections to MKULTRA-type stuff, which I agree needs following up, there are ongoing developments in the Manning alleged 1/4 million US Diplomatic cable leaks thing. Looks like developing into something of a saga.

Wired has published what they say are about 25% of the on-line chat logs between Manning and Lamo (The guy that shopped him to the FBI). Some interesting stuff there. Too long to post here but I'm putting them up as a Word Document on WikiSpooks as well.

The latest Wired post follows:

Wikileaks Commissions Lawyers to Defend Alleged Army Source

• By Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter
  
• June 11, 2010 |
  
• 3:58 pm |
  
• Categories: Bradley Manning, Sunshine and Secrecy
  

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange wants a copy of the chat logs in which a U.S. intelligence analyst discussed providing classified materials to the whistle-blower site, according to an e-mail shown to Wired.com by the ex-hacker who turned the analyst in.
Assange says he’s arranging the legal defense for 22-year-old Bradley Manning, now in his third week in military custody.
In the Friday e-mail to Adrian Lamo, Assange (or someone convincingly posing as him) claims he wants to forward the logs to attorneys he says he’s hired to represent Manning, though the e-mail doesn’t explain why the unnamed lawyers aren’t approaching Lamo directly.
The e-mail also contains talking points Assange would like to see Lamo adopt in describing Manning, and in explaining his decision to report the suspected leaker to law enforcement.

Subject: Manning’s defence; logs; strategy
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:20:40 +0100 (BST)
From: Julian Assange
To: adrian@adrian.org
CC: Julian Assange.
Manning’s defence team, which I have commisioned, urgently requires all emails and chat logs you alleged to have come from Mr. Manning. Please send them to me, if necessary through our online submission system. They will be used strictly for Mr. Manning’s defence, but must be complete.
In addition, it would be helpful if you described Mr. Manning, as a “whistleblower”, who had already lost his access over an unrelated issue, held no data, and was of no meaningful threat to anyone. In particular Mr. Manning was not an “alleged spy”, and it is wrong for you to describe him as such, or to suggest that there were no other approaches to resolving the situation.
It would also be helpful to all concerned if you stopped trying to justify your behavior by whipping up sentiment against Mr. Manning in other ways. Your most effective personal strategy is to say you were scared due to your previous experiences, unthoughtful due to recent drug problems, and made a decision which you now bitterly regret and would under no circumstances repeat. Going around like a poor man’s Tsutomu, constantly drawing attention to yourself through the destruction of a young romantic outlaw figure, will leave you permanently reviled by history–and me.
JA

Wired.com could not confirm that Manning has accepted Assange’s offer of legal assistance. A phone call to his aunt, who has been in contact with Manning following his arrest, was not returned Friday. Assange did not immediately respond to inquiries from Wired.com.
Lamo says he hasn’t attempted to whip up sentiment against Manning, and that he doesn’t intend to comply with Assange’s request.
“No, I’m not going to give the logs to someone who suggests that I might have been drug-addled when I decided to turn in a spy,” says Lamo, who takes prescription medication for depression and Asperger’s Disorder. “Private Manning’s attorney can get them by discovery like everyone else.”
In his chats with Lamo, copies of which were provided to Wired.com by the ex-hacker, Manning described a crisis of conscience that led him to leak a headline-making video of a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians. He also boasted of leaking a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; a detailed Army chronology of events in the Iraq war; and a cache of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables.
Wikileaks has neither confirmed nor denied that Manning leaked information to the site, but on Sunday it tweeted that “Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect.”
Manning told Lamo that he expected the cables to be released in a “searchable format” to the public. The prospect of the cable leak appears to be of particular concern to the United States. One or more of Manning’s hard drives were flown to Washington on Thursday, according to the Associated Press, and State Department diplomatic security agents are examining them for evidence of the allegedly downloaded cables. The Daily Beast reported that the Pentagon is attempting to locate Assange before he publishes the cables, though it’s not clear what defense officials plan to do if they find him.
Responding to the report, Wikileaks tweeted Friday, “Any signs of unacceptable behavior by the Pentagon or its agents towards this press will be viewed dimly.”
Assange was previously scheduled to speak at 4:30 p.m. Pacific time Friday at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Las Vegas. On Friday, Wikileaks tweeted that Assange still plans on participating on the panel, but IRE told the Daily Beast that Assange actually canceled several days ago.
Last week, Assange was scheduled to appear beside Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, but he wound up participating from Australia over Skype instead.


Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06...z0qkPAMsH3

My guess the US Spooks are engaging a lot of manpower on this and we can expect to see all manner of diversionary disinfo and chaff until some sort of resolution.

[Ed Jewett]

A government gone mad, a media gone flaccid: Attacking the Wrong People

By Dave Lindorff
What does it say about the the American government, its president, and its military today, that the the largest military/intelligence organization in the history of mankind has launched a global manhunt for Julian Assange, head of the Wikileaks organization? And what does it say about corporate American journalists that they attack the only real journalist in the White House press corps, when she alone has shown the guts to speak truth?
The Hunt for Julian Assange
Consider first the case of Wikileaks founder Assange, whom Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, warns is in danger if found of being snuffed by the Pentagon’s search teams. First of all, let’s make something clear: he is “guilty” of no crime, but only of doing what American journalists should have done long ago: exposing the crimes of the US government. His Wikileaks famously leaked the military video showing that the crew of a helicopter gunship in Iraq in 2007 had shot up and killed a group of innocent Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists, and laughed and mocked the victims as they were slaughtered. Now the same whistleblower website threatens to release hundreds of thousands of State Department cables that, among other things, reportedly include embarrassing comments by US officials about foreign leaders.
How is it (mainstream journalists ought to be asking but aren’t), that the Pentagon can unleash its vast intelligence resources to hunt down the Australian-born Assange, but cannot bring itself to devote those same resources and commitment to hunting down Osama Bin Laden, the man they claim is behind not only the attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon itself, but also the resistance to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan?
I’m not sure which is the bigger scandal here: the Pentagon’s grotesque misallocation of resources, or the media’s unwillingness to point it out....
For the rest of this article, please go to ThisCantBeHappening.net, the new collectively-owned, journalist-run independent online newspaper, at: ThisCantBeHappening.net
dlindorff's blog

Comments:
#1Submitted by mikecorbeil on Mon, 2010-06-14 03:07.
Re. a misstatement of the present facts or story

Now the same whistleblower website threatens to release hundreds of thousands of State Department cables that, among other things, reportedly include embarrassing comments by US officials about foreign leaders.

There are couple of ways in which that otherwise okay sentence is misstated.
1) Wikileaks doesn't threaten anyone. If the criminal elites feel threatened by their crimes being exposed, then they only need to make sure that they stop their criminal ways. Exposing crimes is not a threat though; and threatening people is a crime.
2) Julian Assange has denied having possession of the State Department cables the Pentagon, so far, alleges were provided to Wikileaks. It's true that he might be saying this to try to buy some time in order to do what he can to make sure the copies of the cables get publicly posted, but we don't have proof that he has any of this.
I believe that the US Army intelligence officer under arrest for having allegedly provided the video recording of the 2007 massacre of around a dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists or reporters is likely telling the truth about having provided the copies of the State Dept cables to Wikileaks; BUT, likely does not mean certainly, definitely, beyond any reasonable doubt, proven fact, et cetera. And he could be just part of a scam operation being used to try to shut down Wikileaks. It could be a con job being played on us in order to try to get us to side with the forced shutting down of Wikileaks.
We don't know. We don't have inside knowledge of the details. We only know what's reported and reports are easily falsified.
We have an extreme example of that with the video footage that Israeli leadership claims the IDF commandos filmed when they raided the Mavi Marmara, f.e. And there are many other examples. One of those are the repeated phony and falsified video recordings of persons the US govt claimed to be Osama bin Laden speaking since the 9/11 attacks in 2001; but there are plenty of examples of govts LYING and news media publishing the lies without any investigative work done.
Anyway, neither Julian Assange nor other people working with him to provide Wikileaks have threatened anyone, and he denied having the copies of the cables in his or Wikileaks' possession.
We know that, as well as the fact that the Pentagon is trying to [hunt] him down and that's it's clearly to put an end to his "troublemaking" ways. After all, we have no evidence of honesty from the Pentagon, CIA ops chiefs, et cetera. We have a lot of proof that they are [terrorist] organizations officially labelled as parts of the govt.
It's like the Mafia and other criminal organizations; what they do with "troublemakers". They SILENCE them; or certainly try.

#2Submitted by mikecorbeil on Mon, 2010-06-14 03:52.
Re. news media, Julian Assange,and Osama bin Laden

How is it (mainstream journalists ought to be asking but aren’t), that the Pentagon can unleash its vast intelligence resources to hunt down the Australian-born Assange, but cannot bring itself to devote those same resources and commitment to hunting down Osama Bin Laden, the man they claim is behind not only the attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon itself, but also the resistance to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Maybe a couple of possible reasons are the following.
Firstly, they realize that OBL most probably died ... plenty of years ago; and realize that regardless of precisely when he died, the chances of him being alive today are rather NIL.
And tey're owned by rich individuals and corporations, which are all war profiteers for whom OBL makes a scapegoat that they idiotically believe to be profitably useful, et cetera.
We haven't heard from the [real] OBL since shortly following the 9/11 attacks; definitely at no time since fall 2001. But, heh, his ghost is still useful, for profits; the delusional western leadership, war-makers, war profiteers, ... evidently believe.
Meanwhile, we all know that Julian Assange is alive and well; and we must hope that he remains that way. But the western elites don't want him to remain that way and the news media kiss and/or brownnose Corporate America's ass. To say they kiss CA's ass is more PC than saying that they're brownnosers, but heck, the latter is also a precise description.
They are co-opted and they are guilty, because they are [responsible] for this co-option. They refuse to perform their profession honourably because they know it'll cost them their jobs and salaries, incomes. They dishonourably prefer to trade their souls for money. And [trade] it is; an awfully rotten kind.
They don't care about this actually making them [traitors]. They prefer to associate their souls with money even as it's incressingly worthless.
Re. SCANDAL
Quote: "I’m not sure which is the bigger scandal here: the Pentagon’s grotesque misallocation of resources, or the media’s unwillingness to point it out....".
Firstly, I think that what the Pentagon's doing is considerably worse than only a "grotesque misallocation of resources".
We should not dismiss the fact that it's very clear that what the Pentagon is doing and saying is really exposing the Pentagon for what it is; an extremely criminal organization that's powerful, murderous, treasonous, .... The Pentagon is acting in a manner that we should immediately be able to realize as characteristic of organized crime.
Secondly, it's clear that the corporate news media is extremely and criminally complicit; AGAIN.
Both are "nothing new"; we've seen this before. We've been able to realize the above about both before, many times.
And it's scandolous every time this importantly happens. When it's about relatively minor matters, then we can easily or much more easily dismiss the flaws; but it's often not about minor matters at all.
In the latter cases, it should always cause widespread and strong public outrage; enough for large numbers of people to gather and cause a human earthquake.
We can't dismiss either, and should realize that the media is only the instrument or an instrument used to try to brainwash and, thereby, manipulate us; while it's the Pentagon that massacres millions of people and destroys countries. Regarding the former, we have power against it. We can individually see to our responsibilities to make sure that we get informed from non-corporate and honest sources. We don't, however, have the ability to stop the war machine, the Pentagon and its masters.
That distinction makes the Pentagon's conduct more truly scandalous, that is, outrageous. We can dismiss the clown fiends of media, for they really don't have control over our minds and lives. They can't really oppress us, deny us our rights and legitimate liberties, et cetera. They really have no power.
What's more scandalous; people being irresponsible citizens or members of society and letting themselves blindly follow unverified reporting, or the fiend reporters who are complicit in trying to deceive or misinform the public? I prefer to emphasize individual responsibility, so it's more scandalous to me that people are grotesquely and sadly irresponsible citizens.
Being dumb sheep is not conducive to [respect] or being respected; or meriting respect!
I would still respect a sheep's rights and legitimate liberties, but being irresponsible citizens is neither a right nor a legitimate liberty!

[Ed Jewett]

Targeting Whistleblowers: Truth Telling Endangered

By Stephen Lendman

July 14, 2010 -- On April 16, journalist John Cole wrote:

The message is clear – you torture people and then destroy the evidence, and you get off without so much as a sternly worded letter. If you are a whistle blower outlining criminal behavior by the government, you get prosecuted.

In fact, it’s worse. Under Bush, torture was official policy. It remains so under Obama who absolved CIA torturers, despite unequivocal evidence of their guilt. But leaking it risks criminal prosecution for revealing state secrets and endangering national security.
On June 7, New York Times writer, Elisabeth Bumiller, headlined, “Army Leak Suspect Is Turned In, by Ex-Hacker,” explaining that US Army intelligence analyst Specialist, Bradley Manning, told Adrian Lamo that he leaked the following materials to WikiLeaks:
– “260,000 classified United States diplomatic cables and video of a (US) airstrike in Afghanistan that killed 97 civilians last year,” and
– an “explosive (39 minute) video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency.” Manning called it “collateral murder,” a crime he felt obliged to expose.
Lamo told the military, saying “I outed Brad Manning as an alleged leaker out of duty. I would never (and have never) outed an Ordinary Decent Criminal. There’s a difference.” He didn’t explain or how any criminal can be decent.
On June 7, the military command in Iraq arrested Manning, saying in Pentagon boilerplate:
“The Department of Defense takes the management of classified information very seriously because it affects our national security, the lives of our soldiers, and our operations abroad.”
So far, Manning is uncharged and is being held in Kuwait pending further action.
On June 6 in wired.com, Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter broke the story in their article headlined, “US Intelligence Analyst Arrested in WikiLeaks Video Probe,” explaining:
The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division arrested Manning after Lamo outed him. The State Department said it wasn’t aware of the arrest. The FBI had no comment, then later the Defense Department confirmed his arrest for allegedly leaking classified information. According to army spokesman, Gary Tallman:

If you have a security clearance and wittingly or unwittingly provide classified information to anyone who doesn’t have security clearance or a need to know, you have violated security regulations and potentially the law.

Manning said:

Everywhere there’s a US post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. It’s open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It’s beautiful and horrifying. (The documents describe) almost criminal political back dealings. (They belong) in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark corner in Washington, DC. (Our government is involved in) incredible things, awful things.

He exposed cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians and reporters, the perpetrators laughing on video like it was a game – the public unaware that Pentagon rules-of-engagement (ROEs) target Iraqi and Afghan civilians as well as alleged combatants.
On June 11, New York Times writer, Scott Shane, headlined, “Obama Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press,” saying:

In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions,” citing actions against Thomas A. Drake (discussed below), and Times columnist James Risen, subpoenaed (by Bush and Obama) to disclose his sources for his book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director for Reporters Committee for Freedom, explained: The message they are sending to everyone is ‘You leak to the media, we will get you.’ As far as I can tell there is absolutely no difference (between Bush and Obama), and (he) seems to be paying more attention to it. This is going to get nasty.
Attorney General Eric Holder approved the subpoena, his Justice Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, saying: “As a general matter, we have consistently said that leaks of classified information are something we take extremely seriously.”
Risen’s lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, explained that the subpoena relates to his report about covert CIA measures to subvert Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. “We will be fighting to quash” it, he said. “Jim is the highest calibre of reporter and adhered to the highest standards of his profession. And he intends to honor the promise of confidentiality he made to (his) source or sources.”
Risen’s publisher, Simon and Schuster, is handling the matter, but a Times statement said:

Our view, however, is that confidential sources are vital in getting information to the public, and a subpoena issued more than four years after the book was published hardly seems to be important enough to outweigh the protection an author needs to have.

First brought in 2006 by Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the grand jury session expired without resolution. Holder will impanel a new one. Risen faces possible prosecution and jail time for honoring his confidentiality commitment, what no reporter should ever violate.
WikiLeaks: What It Is, How It Operates
Calling itself “the intelligence agency of the people,” WikiLeaks says it’s “a multi-jurisdictional public service designed to protect whistleblower, journalist and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public” that has a right to know.
Only when they’re told “the true plans and behavior of their governments” can they decide whether or not they deserve support, or as Jack Kennedy said on April 27, 1961:

The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers, which are cited to justify it.

WikiLeaks believes that “Principled leaking has changed the course of history for the better; it can alter the course of history in the present; it can lead us to a better future.” It can expose abuses of power by “rel(ying) upon the power of overt fact to enable and empower citizens to bring feared and corrupt governments and corporations to justice,” and help make nominal democracies real ones.
Secrecy and Targeting Whistleblowers and Journalists Under Obama
More than ever under Obama, we live in a secret society, in which whistleblowers and journalists are targeted for doing their job — why Helen Thomas, unfairly pilloried by the pro-Israeli chorus, last July said his administration was “controlling the press,” during a White House Robert Gibbs briefing, then afterwards added: “It’s shocking. It’s really shocking….What the hell do they think we are, puppets? They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”
In a July 1, 2009 interview with CNSNews.com, she said even Nixon didn’t exert press control like Obama, saying:

Nixon didn’t try to do that. They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try…. I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to (a) fare-thee-well for town halls, the press conferences. It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.

In February 2009, the Free Flow of Information Act was introduced in the House and Senate. In March, the lower body passed it overwhelmingly, after which it stalled in Senate Committee.
At the time, the Obama administration weakened it in opposition to strong congressional support — on the pretext of national security considerations over the public’s right to know, to let prosecutors judicially force reporters and whistleblowers to reveal their sources. Though the bill never passed, the administration uses it to prevent exposure of information it wants suppressed, more aggressively than any of his predecessors, another measure of a man promising change.
Thomas Drake was an Obama administration target, a former National Security Agency (NSA) “senior executive,” indicted on April 15, 2010, on multiple charges of “willful retention of classified information, obstruction of justice and making false statements,” according to Assistant Attorney General, Lanny A. Breuer, of the Criminal Division.
The 10-count indictment alleges he gave Baltimore Sun reporter, Sibohan Gorman, classified NSA documents about the agency. In fact, she wrote about waste and mismanagement in its “Trailblazer” project (a program analyzing data on computer networks), and illegal spying activities, saying on May 18, 2006 in her article headlined, “NSA Killed System That Sifted Phone Data Legally” that:

Once President Bush gave the go-ahead for the NSA to secretly gather and analyze domestic phone records – an authorization that carried no stipulations about identity protection — agency officials regarded the encryption as an unnecessary step and rejected it.

Her stories, however, focused mainly on the Trailblazer $1.2 billion initiative that one insider called “the biggest boondoggle going on now in the intelligence community,” what the public had every right to know.
Drake’s leaks exposed illegal NSA spying, its enormous amount of waste and fraud, and the formation of a public/private national security/surveillance state, incentivizing profiteers to hype fear for their own bottom-line self-interest.
As a candidate, Obama promised transparency, accountability, and reform of extremist Bush policies. As president, he usurped unchecked surveillance powers, including warrantless wiretapping, accessing personal records, monitoring financial transactions, and tracking e-mails, Internet and cell phone use to gather secret evidence for prosecutions. He also claims Justice Department immunity from illegal spying suits, an interpretation no member of Congress or administration ever made, not even Bush or his Republican allies.
As a result, his national security state targets activists, political dissidents, anti-war protestors, Muslims, Latino immigrants, lawyers who defend them, whistleblowers, journalists who expose federal crimes, corruption, and excesses who won’t disclose their sources, and WikiLeaks, cited in a 2008 Pentagon report as a major US security threat, important to shut down by deterring, discouraging or prosecuting its sources. More on that below.
At a time of extreme government secrecy, lawlessness, and betrayal of the public trust, exposes and public debate more than ever are vital — whistleblowers, WikiLeaks, and courageous reporters essential to an open society, one endangered without them.
WikiLeaks March 15, 2010 Release: “US Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks”
The group’s founder, Julian Assange, described a 32-page February 2008 counterintelligence investigation “to fatally marginalize the organization.” However, after two years, without success, at least so far.
It called WikiLeaks “a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the US Army, (jeopardizing) DoD personnel, equipment, facilities, or installations. Such information (could help) foreign intelligence and security services (FISS), foreign military forces, foreign insurgents, and foreign terrorist groups (by providing them) information (they could use to attack) US force(s), both within the United States and abroad” — typical Pentagon boilerplate to hype threats and deter whistleblowers from exposing government crimes and excesses, what the public has every right to know.
In response, WikiLeaks said protecting the identity of leakers takes high priority. It operates “to expose unethical practices, illegal behavior, and wrongdoing within corrupt (government agencies and) corporations (as well as) oppressive regimes” abroad, some in collusion with Washington.
The goal — expose wrongdoing, demand accountability, and support democratic principles in a free and open society — what governments are supposed to do, but when they don’t, organizations like WikiLeaks exhibit the highest form of patriotism, to be lauded, not spied on, pilloried, or destroyed.
Among its many accusations, DOD claimed WikiLeaks:

• has possible DOD moles giving it sensitive or classified information;
  
• uses its site to post fabricated and manipulated information;
  
• has 2,000 pages of leaked army documents with information about US and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,
  
• including on the kinds and numbers of equipment assigned to US Central Command;
  
• Julian Assange wrote and co-authored articles, based on leaked information, “to facilitate action by the US Congress to force the withdrawal of US troops by cutting off funding for the war(s);”
  
• leaked information “could aid enemy forces in planning terrorist attacks, (choose) the most effective type and emplacement of improvised explosive devices (IEDs)” and use other ways to target US military units, convoys, and bases;
  
• data published is misinterpreted, manipulated misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda;
  
• a November 9, 2007 report said US forces “had almost certainly violated the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC),” and has 2,386 low grade chemical weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan;
  
• the same report charged DOD with illegal white phosphorous use in the 2004 Fallujah attack;
  
• the Bush administration was accused of torture and denying ICRC representatives access to Guantanamo detainees;
  
• details were provided on DOD’s use of asymmetric tactics, techniques, and procedures in the April 2004 Fallujah assault; and
  
• many other accusations and concerns were listed, including whether “foreign organizations… foreign military services, foreign insurgents, or terrorist groups provide funding or material support to Wikileaks.org.”
  

DOD concluded that successfully identifying, prosecuting, and terminating the employment of leakers “would damage and potentially destroy” WikiLeaks’ operation and deter others from supplying information. It also stressed “the need for strong counterintelligence, antiterrorism, force protection, information assurance, INFOSEC, and OPSEC programs to train Army personnel” on ways to prevent leaks and report “suspicious activities.”
Julian Assange is a man with a mission — total transparency. WikiLeaks is a vital resource by providing key information on how governments and corporations betray the public interest. Given America’s tradition of war crimes, corruption and other abuses of power, no wonder DOD is concerned, thankfully so far without success, or according to WikiLeaks:
Its activities are “the strongest way we have of generating the true democracy and good governance on which all mankind’s dreams depend,” and may have a chance to achieve from their work and others like them — grassroots activism, power and determination, the only way change ever comes, never from the top down, a lesson to internalize, remember, and act on.
A Final Note
On June 10, Daily Beast writer, Philip Shenon, headlined, “Pentagon Manhunt,” saying:
“Anxious that WikiLeaks may be on the verge of publishing a batch of secret State Department cables, investigators are desperately searching for founder, Julian Assange.”
In early June, he was scheduled to speak at New York’s Personal Democracy Forum, but was advised against it for his safety. Instead, he appeared via Skype from Australia.
Interviewed about Assange, famed whistleblower Daniel, Ellsberg, believes he could be in danger, saying: “I happen to have been the target of a White House hit squad myself. On May 3, 1972, a dozen CIA assets from the Bay of Pigs, Cuban emigres, were brought up from Miami with orders to ‘incapacitate me totally.’ ” Ellsberg asked if that meant to kill him, and was told “It means to incapacitate you totally. But you have to understand these guys never use the word ‘kill.’ ”
Is Assange now in danger?

Absolutely. On the same basis, I was…. Obama is now proclaiming rights of life and death, being judge, jury, and executioner of Americans without due process” at home or abroad, besides non-citizens anywhere as well, the rule of law be damned. “No president has ever claimed that and possibly no one since John the First.”

Ellsberg’s advice to Assange:
“Stay out of the US. Otherwise, keep doing what he is doing. It’s pretty valuable…. He is serving our democracy and serving our rule of law precisely by challenging the secrecy regulations, which are not laws in most cases, in this country. He is doing very good work for our democracy,” something Obama, like his predecessors, works daily to subvert.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. Contact him at: lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM-1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests.



http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25716.htm

[Ed Jewett]

Famed Hacker Lamo Scorned for Blowing Whistle on Classified Leaks

By SAM STANTON

July 14, 2010 "Sacramento Bee" - - CARMICHAEL, Calif. - On a weekday afternoon, Adrian Lamo sat quietly in the corner of a Starbucks inside a Safeway, tapping on a laptop that requires his thumbprint to turn on and answering his cell phone.The first call, he said, came from an FBI agent asking about a death threat Lamo had received.
The second was from a Domino's pizza outlet. One of his many new enemies had left his name and number on a phony order.
The third was from Army counterintelligence, he said.
In other circumstances, it might be easy to dismiss his claims as delusional.
He is an unassuming 29-year-old who lives with his parents on a dead-end street in Carmichael and was recently released from a mental ward, where he was held briefly until doctors discovered his odd behavior stemmed from Asperger's syndrome.
But Lamo is also the most famous computer hacker in the world at the moment, the subject of national security debates and international controversy -- and a target of scorn in the hacker community that once celebrated him.
Lamo first gained notoriety in 2003, when he was charged with hacking into the New York Times computer system, essentially just to prove he could.
He has re-emerged in the spotlight following his decision in May to tell federal agents he had reason to believe an Army private in Iraq was leaking classified information.
Lamo said the information was going to WikiLeaks.org, a website based in Sweden that publishes information about governments and corporations submitted by anonymous individuals.
The soldier, Pfc. Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst who was stationed near Baghdad, is reportedly being held by the Army in Kuwait while the case is investigated.
Lamo said Manning contacted him online after reading a profile of him on wired.com, which first reported Manning's arrest and Lamo's involvement. Manning, he said, bragged about leaking classified military information to WikiLeaks, including the so-called "Collateral Murder" video of a U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed several civilians in 2007. That video appeared on WikiLeaks in April.
Lamo said Manning also claimed to have leaked other materials to the website, including 260,000 U.S. classified diplomatic cables.
"I couldn't just not do anything, knowing lives were in danger," Lamo said. "It's classified information, and when you play Russian roulette, how do you know there's not a bullet in the next chamber?"
"I am not a traitor," he added, "and I wouldn't harbor a traitor."
Lamo's allegations brought swift action from the government. He said he has met several times with the FBI, National Security Agency officials and Army investigators, huddling with them at a Starbucks, a diner and other area locales.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said during a media briefing last week that investigators are trying to determine what impact the release of the cables could have.
Lamo's decision to go to authorities has made him a hero in some corners. But the sentiment has not been unanimous.
WikiLeaks has reviled him on Twitter, calling him a "notorious" felon, informer and manipulator.
The website also tweeted that allegations Manning has provided it 260,000 classified cables "are, as far as we can tell, incorrect."
Since the story broke, Lamo has been the target of profane online postings and, he says, dozens of death threats. It is an odd position for Lamo, whose exploits have been chronicled over the years online, in print and in films.
He has been a nomad for much of his life, often labeled the "homeless hacker."
Born in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Arlington, Va., Lamo moved to his father's native Colombia when he was 10. The family returned to the United States a few years later, settling for a while in San Francisco.
"He has an enormous curiosity to see how things work," said Douglas Keachie, a former computer science teacher at Lowell High School in Sacramento who gave Lamo his first -- and only -- formal computer training before kicking him out of class for infesting class systems with impenetrable viruses. "He's an unsung genius as far as I can tell."
Lamo said he taught himself much of what he knows about computers, starting out on a Commodore 64 his father bought when Lamo was about 7.
After high school, he found himself in the midst of the 1990s dot-com boom in the Bay Area, paying $2,000 a month in apartment rent and providing computer security services for a legal assistance group.
Lamo enjoyed moving about without anyone knowing where he was, "at first out of sheer paranoia, and later justified paranoia."
During his travels he indulged his insatiable curiosity by hacking into the computer systems of some of the largest corporations in the world, and then telling them about it to alert them that they were vulnerable.
He never asked for money to help identify the weaknesses, he said. "That would have been crossing a line," he said. "That never would have felt right."
And then he ran into the New York Times, whose computer system he says he hacked into in February 2002 from a Kinko's in downtown Sacramento. Federal prosecutors in New York filed computer fraud charges against Lamo that could have netted him 15 years in prison.
Lamo eventually took a plea deal that placed him on 30 months probation and levied a $64,938 fine.
Lamo now offers himself up as a computer security consultant and spends a great deal of time on his laptop inside the Safeway Starbucks.
"I only take jobs which have 'hack value,' jobs that are interesting," he said.
He takes offense when his life is summed up as "hacker," saying that does not capture his curiosity about "complex systems, social ones, ecological ones, interpersonal ones."
"More than anything, I'm an observer," he said.
(E-mail reporter Sam Stanton at sstanton(at)sacbee.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e25715.htm

[Peter Presland]

Another anti-Assange message from a 'WikiLeaks Insider'.

Sounds plausible enough - but disinfo is by definition plausible too eh?

I keep an open mind on Assange; but I still think he is being naive if he seriously believes he can taunt the US Intell/Black ops establishment for long and survive unscathed. Maybe he has a sort of martyr-impulse. If so, he'll either get his wish or, when the real crunch comes, he'll be turned. Not likely to be any half measures either, if the stakes really are as high as the possible publication of 1/4 million classified US diplomatic cables - if.

From Cryptome:

Via PGPboard, 14 June 2010:
Cryptome published the following:-
Quote [From: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/conscience/]

He said that Julian Assange had offered him (Manning) a position at Wikileaks. But he said,” I’m not interested right now. Too much excess baggage.”

endquote
There will never be any transcripts of Manning's communications with Assange. The issue here is that Assange and Manning (the primary source of Wikileaks Iraq and Afghanistan leaks) hoped to jointly profit by selling some of the data by auction to interested news and media organisations such as AFP, Reuters and CNN, and several British daily newspapers.
Assange will throw Manning to the dogs. As we speak, Assange will not accept any communications from Manning. Manning will be hung out to dry in order to cover Assange’s ass.
A Wikileaks Insider

Must say I like:

There will never be any transcripts of Manning's communications with Assange..

A telling, knife-twisting point - playing on the perils of secrecy when openness/transparency is your watchword.

[Magda Hassan]

WikiLeaks may be under attack.

You were generous enough to write to us, but we have not had the labor resources to respond.

Your support is important to us. Please read all of this email to understand what is going on. We apologize for not getting back to you before. It is not through any lack of interest on our part, but an enforced lack of resources.

One of our alleged sources, a young US intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, has been detained and shipped to a US military prison in Kuwait, where he is being held without trail. Mr. Manning is alleged to have acted according to his conscious and leaked to us the Collateral Murder video and the video of a massacre that took place in Afghanistan last year at Garani.

The Garani massacre, which we are still working on, killed over 100 people, mostly children.

Mr. Manning allegedly also sent us 260,000 classified US Department cables, reporting on the actions of US Embassy's engaging in abusive actions all over the world. We have denied the allegation, but the US government is acting as if the allegation is true and we do have a lot of other material that exposes human rights abuses by the United States government.

Mr. Manning was allegedly exposed after talking to an unrelated "journalist" who then worked with the US government to detain him.

Some background on the Manning case:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/06...s-founder/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06...eaks-chat/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06...t-anxious/
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/06/143011.htm

[ note that there are some questions about the Wired reportage, see: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/13/vid...ent-809677 ]

WikiLeaks a small organization going through enormous growth and operating in an adverserial, high-security environment which can make communication time consuming and the acquisition of new staff and volunteers, also difficult since they require high levels of trust.

To try and deal with our growth and the current difficult situation, we want to get you to work together with our other supporters to set up a "Friends of WikiLeaks" group in your area. We have multiple supporters in most countries and would like to see them be a strong and independent force.

Please write to friends@sunshinepress.org if you are interested in helping with Friends of WikiLeaks in your area. You will receive further instructions.

We also have significant unexpected legal costs (for example flying a legal team to Kuwait, video production. Collateral Murder production costs were $50,000 all up).

Any financial contributions will be of IMMEDIATE assistance.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Support

Please donate and tell the world that you have done so. Encourage all your friends to follow the example you set, after all, courage is contagious.

Julian Assange
Editor in Chief
WIKILEAKS

[Peter Presland]

Magda - all,

That email - allegedly from Assange - needs to be read after John Young's introductory commentary:

15 June 2010. Based on spelling errors and syntax, this message does not appear to be written by Julian Assange, perhaps by someone on his behalf. Could be a forgery to gather data on WL supporters. To protect identity of supporters, WL is usually careful to authenticate its communications. However, security may be lax due to the furor roiling WL into losing control of opsec discipline -- the very technique Bradley Manning asserts led to the Army's negligence into protecting its assets from him. Not that what Lamo and Paulsen claim Manning chatted has been authenticated. More likely, the usual threats, lies, disinfo, exaggeration and braggardy are being spread to advance seemingly competing interests. Seemingly. Could be mutual back-scratching, the secretkeepers' and secret peddlers' most-favored operation. No threat, no need for secrets, no market for leaks. Best to work together to fleece the gullible with national security confidence gaming.

WikiLeaks may be under attack.

You were generous enough to write to us, but we have not had the labor resources to respond.

Your support is important to us. Please read all of this email to understand what is going on. We apologize for not getting back to you before. It is not through any lack of interest on our part, but an enforced lack of resources.

One of our alleged sources, a young US intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, has been detained and shipped to a US military prison in Kuwait, where he is being held without trail. Mr. Manning is alleged to have acted according to his conscious and leaked to us the Collateral Murder video and the video of a massacre that took place in Afghanistan last year at Garani.

The Garani massacre, which we are still working on, killed over 100 people, mostly children.

Mr. Manning allegedly also sent us 260,000 classified US Department cables, reporting on the actions of US Embassy's engaging in abusive actions all over the world. We have denied the allegation, but the US government is acting as if the allegation is true and we do have a lot of other material that exposes human rights abuses by the United States government.

Mr. Manning was allegedly exposed after talking to an unrelated "journalist" who then worked with the US government to detain him.

Some background on the Manning case:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/06...s-founder/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06...eaks-chat/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06...t-anxious/
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/06/143011.htm

[ note that there are some questions about the Wired reportage, see: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/13/vid...ent-809677 ]

WikiLeaks a small organization going through enormous growth and operating in an adverserial, high-security environment which can make communication time consuming and the acquisition of new staff and volunteers, also difficult since they require high levels of trust.

To try and deal with our growth and the current difficult situation, we want to get you to work together with our other supporters to set up a "Friends of WikiLeaks" group in your area. We have multiple supporters in most countries and would like to see them be a strong and independent force.

Please write to friends@sunshinepress.org if you are interested in helping with Friends of WikiLeaks in your area. You will receive further instructions.

We also have significant unexpected legal costs (for example flying a legal team to Kuwait, video production. Collateral Murder production costs were $50,000 all up).

Any financial contributions will be of IMMEDIATE assistance.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Support

Please donate and tell the world that you have done so. Encourage all your friends to follow the example you set, after all, courage is contagious.

Julian Assange
Editor in Chief
WIKILEAKS