Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 7, 2010; 2:35 PM
Monday, June 7, 2010; 2:35 PM
U.S. military officials said Monday that they had detained a military intelligence analyst from Potomac for allegedly leaking classified information to the whistleblower site Wikileaks.org. A prominent former hacker said the analyst provided U.S. combat video footage and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records.
Army Spec. Bradley Manning, 22, is being held in Kuwait while officials conduct an investigation, according to the military. He has not been charged.
"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," the U.S. military command in Iraq said in a statement.
Manning, who had access to classified networks while stationed in Iraq with the 10th Mountain Division, was turned in by a former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who contacted the Army after Manning confided in him through instant messages and e-mail, according to Wired.com, which first reported the case.
Manning reportedly said that he had come across documents and felt they contained "incredible things, awful things . . . that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C."
On his Facebook page, Lamo acknowledged reporting Manning to authorities.
"I'm heartsick for Manning and his family," Lamo wrote. "I hope they can forgive me some day for doing what I felt had to be done.
He added: "I've never turned anyone in before, and don't plan to again. But he was like a kid playing with a loaded gun. Someone was bound to get hurt."
Manning, according to Wired, had been sifting through military networks for months when he discovered the Iraq video in late 2009. Wikileaks later released it under the title, "Collateral Murder."
"Justice was what this U.S. soldier did by uncovering this crime against humanity," Nabil Noor-Eldeen, whose brother, Namir, was killed in the strike, said Monday. "The American military should reward him, not arrest him."
A spokesman for Wikileaks declined to say whether Manning had been a source, and said the online organization was launching its own review into whether U.S. prosecutors had broken laws in their leaks investigation.
"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," the U.S. military command in Iraq said in a statement.
Manning, who had access to classified networks while stationed in Iraq with the 10th Mountain Division, was turned in by a former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who contacted the Army after Manning confided in him through instant messages and e-mail, according to Wired.com, which first reported the case.
Manning reportedly said that he had come across documents and felt they contained "incredible things, awful things . . . that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C."
On his Facebook page, Lamo acknowledged reporting Manning to authorities.
"I'm heartsick for Manning and his family," Lamo wrote. "I hope they can forgive me some day for doing what I felt had to be done.
He added: "I've never turned anyone in before, and don't plan to again. But he was like a kid playing with a loaded gun. Someone was bound to get hurt."
Wikileaks, a secretive three-year-old organization headquartered in Berlin, achieved global prominence in April when it posted a U.S. military video of a 2007 helicopter attack on Iraq in which several civilians were killed, including two Reuters employees.
Manning, according to Wired, had been sifting through military networks for months when he discovered the Iraq video in late 2009. Wikileaks later released it under the title, "Collateral Murder."
"Justice was what this U.S. soldier did by uncovering this crime against humanity," Nabil Noor-Eldeen, whose brother, Namir, was killed in the strike, said Monday. "The American military should reward him, not arrest him."
A spokesman for Wikileaks declined to say whether Manning had been a source, and said the online organization was launching its own review into whether U.S. prosecutors had broken laws in their leaks investigation.
The spokesman, Daniel Schmitt, said Wikileaks typically does not know the identities of the people who send documents and photos to the Web site. But he said the organization maintains that it is illegal to prosecute someone for trying to expose government corruption or injustice. Schmitt said Wikileaks' legal advisers are specifically reviewing whether an arrest of a whistleblower violates laws in Sweden and Belgium, two countries in which the site operates.
"We believe the person behind the leak, whoever it is, is protected by law," Schmitt said. The organization recently launched a $600,000 fund-raising drive, in part to raise money to defend leakers who run afoul of their government's laws, he said.
Manning was stationed at Forward Operating base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested about two weeks ago, according to Wired.
He told Lamo, who shared chat logs with Wired, that he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a video depicting a 2009 airstrike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks had acknowledged it had in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat; and a previously unreported breach of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables. According to Wired, Manning described the cables as exposing "almost criminal political back dealings."
Lamo told Wired he "agonized" over the decision to turn in Manning, but the diplomatic cable breach, if true, made him believe Manning's actions truly threatened national security.
In 2003, Lamo gained notoriety after he infiltrated the New York Times' computer system and, among other things, altered a database containing personal information for more than 3,000 contributors to the paper's op-ed page. He later pled guilty to a single count of computer damage.
Manning was stationed at Forward Operating base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested about two weeks ago, according to Wired.
He told Lamo, who shared chat logs with Wired, that he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a video depicting a 2009 airstrike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks had acknowledged it had in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat; and a previously unreported breach of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables. According to Wired, Manning described the cables as exposing "almost criminal political back dealings."
Lamo told Wired he "agonized" over the decision to turn in Manning, but the diplomatic cable breach, if true, made him believe Manning's actions truly threatened national security.
In 2003, Lamo gained notoriety after he infiltrated the New York Times' computer system and, among other things, altered a database containing personal information for more than 3,000 contributors to the paper's op-ed page. He later pled guilty to a single count of computer damage.
Staff writers Joby Warrick in Washington and Leila Fadel in Baghdad and special correspondent Jinan Hussein in Baghdad contributed to this report.
Collateral Murder
Overview
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.
After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".
Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.
WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.
WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.
WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.
