U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

[theprez98]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

I totally agree that it took alot of balls for Manning to stand up and do what he felt he needed to instead of being a mindless soldier. I thought thats what we wanted in our military instead of robots?

Not sure where you got this notion, but the military is not about standing up and doing what you feel you need to do. Your post presumes that a soldier is either "mindless" or an enlightened free thinker but you leave no possibility of anything in between. On the contrary.

Your notion flies directly in the face of the concept of the chain of command, and of military order and discipline. This isn't about disobeying an unlawful order; as a holder of a TS clearance his direct orders, and his responsibilities to death are to protect that information. I have no doubt, concerning both the video(s) and the diplomatic cables, that Manning (nor Wikileaks for that matter) does not understand the context, and thus truly does not have a real capacity to objectively evaluate this data. He is an intelligence analyst, not an expert in diplomacy, or the laws of war. Even if the information in question seems suspect to him, his responsibility is to report it to his chain of command, not to release it.

The notion that Manning is a hero is so far-fetched as to be laughable. Your hero will be found guilty is going to prison.

[@ADAM421]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

greets -
so I took the poll, and unlike many others I choose Q1 -> Yes.
(disclaimer) I am waay too much a pussy in RL to actually do what manning did, that took balls. that took guts.

with the 'collateral murder' data, personally I believe this information should be public, as well the Garani attacks. judging on this data alone, I think Manning did the right thing, not necessarilly the legal thing. as far as adrian lam(e)O, no respect for him or his co-horts in exposing Manning. snitching is the lowest of lows, even worse especially when a "journalist" does it! this sole event should cause lam(e)O to lose any and all journalism cred, henceforth imho.

I do see echos of americas past, from daniel ellsberg's pentagon papers and alot of the surrounding events.
of the recent articles that have come out, I've really enjoyed = http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/061510.html

[edit]I felt this boing-boing comment #16 was a decent assesment of the current situation - but as below stated, it is politically charged and my understanding of the forum rules has expanded. thanks for the heads-up thecotman.
> quote removed, and condensed to a link.

I totally agree that it took alot of balls for Manning to stand up and do what he felt he needed to instead of being a mindless soldier. I thought thats what we wanted in our military instead of robots?
Lamo is a RAT in my opinion. He could have given some guidance to Manning but instead he decided to take another course of action.
From what ive read it seems like some people think that Manning was wrong for just putting ish like that out there. Maybe they dont trust wikileaks maybe they feel like our soldiers are in more danger from pissed off Iraqies. I seem to think of the citizens being saved by soldiers thinking twice that someone might see what they are doing. hope thats not too political.*

[fnord0]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

...adding to the discussion here => Gleen Greenwald produced a highly researched, and extensively hyperlink-sourced new post titled "The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks" for salon.com. imho, this is one of the better journalistic pieces to have come out since the news first hit that A.Lamo turned informant on Army Specialist Bradley Manning.

secondarily, double-G also posted two mp3 files attached at the end of the piece, which are the recorded Q`n`A sessions between double-G and Adrian Lamo. after having listened to both audio recordings, I must admit A.Lamo gets brownie points in my book for doing the interview, yet I still think very little of him and his actions. the whole interview is quite entertaining in-and-of-itself. GG and A.Lamo end up making a bet on how long Manning will rot in federal prison, which went a little something like this ;

A.Lamo: "I will bet you $10 or a beer at a hacker confrence that he doesn't do more then six months"
Glenn Greenwald: "oh, I'll take that bet"
...... ..... ......
A.Lamo: "...and, for both my sake and mr. mannings I hope you end up oweing me $10 and a beer"
Glenn Greenwald: "I don't expect to, but I think you should start saving up (we'll) see how that goes"
A.Lamo: "I'll start a piggy bank"

my thought is the files were posted in response to A.Lamo's tweet seemingly right before the interview took place... GG even goes to mention at the end of the article, "Lamo for some reason insists that I respond to a Tweet of his before we begin, which I then did."

one other excellent news piece was the democracy now report, and interview with (quoting the DN article)

"Daniel Ellsberg, who’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers has made him perhaps the nation’s most famous whistleblower; Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament who has collaborated with Wikileaks and drafted a new Icelandic law protecting investigative journalists; and Glenn Greenwald, political and legal blogger for Salon.com."

(unquote) where Daniel Ellsberg himself says,

"[...] 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."

imho, I heartily agree with the DEllsberg's comment - bravo.

[TheCotMan]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

greets -
so I took the poll, and unlike many others I choose Q1 -> Yes.
(disclaimer) I am waay too much a pussy in RL to actually do what manning did, that took balls. that took guts.

with the 'collateral murder' data, personally I believe this information should be public, as well the Garani attacks. judging on this data alone, I think Manning did the right thing, not necessarilly the legal thing. as far as adrian lam(e)O, no respect for him or his co-horts in exposing Manning. snitching is the lowest of lows, even worse especially when a "journalist" does it! this sole event should cause lam(e)O to lose any and all journalism cred, henceforth imho.

I do see echos of americas past, from daniel ellsberg's pentagon papers and alot of the surrounding events.
of the recent articles that have come out, I've really enjoyed = http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/061510.html

and to spark some more discussion here, I found this post on one`a the maillists I subscribe to (hope u dont mind reposting here - the whole .. "it's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission") ::

- From a boingboing comment

{CHOP}

Your quote (from boing boing comment) is politically charged and a violation of the rules we have on no politics and religion. Expressing praise or condemnation at a particular party or a government leader leads to problems on the forums, and is not allowed. Urging people to political action and describing what should happen to laws and political system as a call to political action are not the focus of the Defcon forums. If you have a strong interest in Politics, I believe that 2600 encourages political discussion in their on-line groups. Please remove the politically charged comments from the quote in your post. You may, instead, direct people with a URL to the comment on boing boing so people can respond to it there.

You have 24 hours to edit your post to remove the rule violation. If it persists after that, I will /dev/null your entire post.

Adding to the discussion is good, so long as we keep political action out of it and avoid getting "too political."

If you have a desire to play in the realm of discussion about politics, we have a discussion in /dev/null (Just what is too political) where we try to outline just how far is too far with political discussions.

The good news? The content you posted before the quote is within the realm of what is not too political. Hope that helps. Good luck on the forums.

Yeah, I put the "dick" in "dictator" because I enforce rules, but we have the rules of no Politics or Religion after we tried providing a forum for Politics and Religion. We learn from our past and look to improve the forums. All of the rules that exist were created to address problems -- they were not added trivially, but instead with thoughtful consideration and debate.

Edit: Updated:
Thanks fnord0. :-)

[fnord0]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

greets -
so I took the poll, and unlike many others I choose Q1 -> Yes.
(disclaimer) I am waay too much a pussy in RL to actually do what manning did, that took balls. that took guts.

with the 'collateral murder' data, personally I believe this information should be public, as well the Garani attacks. judging on this data alone, I think Manning did the right thing, not necessarilly the legal thing. as far as adrian lam(e)O, no respect for him or his co-horts in exposing Manning. snitching is the lowest of lows, even worse especially when a "journalist" does it! this sole event should cause lam(e)O to lose any and all journalism cred, henceforth imho.

I do see echos of americas past, from daniel ellsberg's pentagon papers and alot of the surrounding events.
of the recent articles that have come out, I've really enjoyed = http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/061510.html

[edit]I felt this boing-boing comment #16 was a decent assesment of the current situation - but as below stated, it is politically charged and my understanding of the forum rules has expanded. thanks for the heads-up thecotman.
> quote removed, and condensed to a link.

[shrdlu]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

awe, i like and respect you, too, dearest... and i took no offense from your words.

You never know how things will be taken, especially when there's not enough caffeine in the blood to make me human. We are at the same crossroads now (I've had some coffee, but not enough.)

i still do not fully believe that it would be inappropriate for WikiLeaks (or any other journalistic enterprise) to privately review the material (with a keen eye for security as they did so) and attempt to see if there is a hidden item that is particularly egregious or heinous.

Same thing I said before. I think that most of what got dumped in their laps is random, and that even Manning, that candidate for a firing squad (and if you think that's bad, you should see what I wrote before), doesn't know what's in those documents.

I do NOT think that the Wikileaks folks are the enemy. I usually support their work. I give liberally to the EFF. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. My point is this, however:

Currently, to my knowledge, no one has seen what's in most of the documents. In addition, there just is not any way in this lifetime for a bunch of well-meaning but uninformed "journalists" to read through and have an "eye" for security. There just isn't. It's going to be a nightmare to review as it is, and yes indeedy, sooner or later someone is going to be reviewing each and every line of each and every document to determine what the exposure was.

Here's another item for you to ponder. Some of what they may have (and please note, I said MAY HAVE) might jeopardize lives if released. It may be items that they don't recognize as having that ability. Still, the possibility is there.

The right thing for them to do is to just turn any non-published documents over.

As an aside, but an important one...

I have seen things that I did not agree with in my {mumble} years in the black world. If I did not agree with something I'd been briefed into, I asked to be transferred elsewhere, and debriefed. People with the courage of their convictions are willing to become unemployed to maintain those convictions (although it never happened that I did, I have indeed run that risk, and more than once). I will still take to the grave any of those things that I knew, and then officially did not know, after debriefing.

Some of us take our oaths seriously.

[TheCotMan]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

Have you ever dropped specific information with focus on different details to different people to see if any information gets back to you through other channels? It is certainly a risky thing, as anyone that has ever played the childhood game, "telephone," can attest to, but over a long period of time, the passing of seemingly non-private but different data that nobody would consider a risk to privacy to different sources might allow you to find a mole, or someone that is working against you. I've played this game at work providing information about something that other people might not want made public, but I don't really care about. When that information is provided to only one co-worker, and they are asked to keep it private, but later, other co-workers know about it, then I know the first person cannot be trusted.

The same thing is done by many sophisticated shoppers that must talk to a salesman before buying something. These people will often research their big ticket purchase such as a car, and find out details about it. Then, when they go in to talk to a salesman, they will ask the salesman questions where the answer is known. The reliability and trustworthiness of the salesman to be honest about their product and their depth of knowledge is revealed in their answers. This is helpful when asking questions for answers the shopper has no knowledge.

Both of the above items illustrate subtle techniques at passing seemingly non-secret, and non-private information that can permit conclusions of great consequence. I would expect governments and powerful organizations to have similar techniques in place, with the consequences being life or death, if a source is exposed. It could also cause a plan (thought to have been secret) to now be understood as exposed by, "the enemy", causing "the enemy" to plan something new, which may not be known to "the allies" and cost lives of "allies."

On the topic of everything that has been published so far? Leave it published. Consider what happened with "CiscoGate" when Pandora opened the box. Once on the Internet, it is saved somewhere. Only feasible option is damage control.

The only question on content remains of what to do with the information that has not been posted on the Internet. If this was a true case of inter-governmental espionage, then what would be the result of this information falling into "the enemy's" hands? There is no undo. The information has been seen by "the enemy" and no amount of claims can ever allow "the allies" the believe the information contained in the leaked data was never examined by "the enemy." Because of this, and because the information has allegedly been out of the control of people with the appropriate clearance, the next step should be one of damage control. Step 1 should be to understand what data was leaked, and then step 2 should be to understand risks associated with the information being lost to "the enemy, and step 3 should be to cast-out, insulate or protect exposed assets. I would think those would have been started as soon as "the allies" knew they lost control of data that was classified as restricted/secret/.*

It would be kind for "the enemy" to give us the documents back, and purge all backups, but there is no way to prove that no other copies were made, and "prove a negative" such as, "nobody else reviewed these documents" If they were passed as email, are they in a "sent-mail" folder? Was the document encrypted before being transmitted? Was anyone sniffing mail on any link between the source and destination? Once it left the US, were any other foreign countries sniffing email traffic? Does the source use an outbound spam filter? Do they cache all sent mail? What about an inbound filter at any hop? Do they cache filtered mail? Last hop? Do the servers that store these messages have a RAID array? Tape backup? How often are tapes made? Are tapes sent off-site for disaster recovery? Did these documents exist as one or more files on any servers between the source and the destination? If the files were deleted were they "secure" erased form disk, or could they be undeleted easily, or with more effort?

Once the data is "out there" there is no way to provide 100% certainty that no living "enemy" has seen it and no other copies exist that could fall into "the enemy's" hands. All that getting the originals back now would do would be to provide political "warm fuzzies" to politicians, but should provide no real satisfaction and happy-fun-time to the assets and resources that might now be exposed.

Though it would be kind for "the enemy" to not publish the documents that have not yet been published, the documents are no longer in the control of just "the allies." Until they are shown otherwise, the documents they have are under the control of "the enemy" to do with as they wish.

It is possible the documents will be treated as stolen , or maybe copyrighted material. That would be amusing... if no laws exist to cover receipt of documents "owned" by another country, but laws do exist to address copyright claims.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

This reads more strident than I'd like. In addition, I want to say that I like and respect Deviant, but can't help myself here.

awe, i like and respect you, too, dearest... and i took no offense from your words.

i really do recognize that some of the folk here, you among them, have a much more detailed and in-depth perspective on this matter due to careers directly involved with such material. i saw (and even mentioned at the end of my post) that my opinion was still half-formed and still a bit malleable.

i still do not fully believe that it would be inappropriate for WikiLeaks (or any other journalistic enterprise) to privately review the material (with a keen eye for security as they did so) and attempt to see if there is a hidden item that is particularly egregious or heinous.

i do appreciate the comments from folk like shrdlu and prez, especially since their perspective seems a bit under-represented in the hacker world which is often replete with no-holds-barred "information wants to be free!!" zealotry.

(insert my customary self-congratulatory praise for this community as a whole for yet again being able to touch on somewhat political matters while still keeping cool heads, addressing one another fairly, and generally not coming anywhere close to flame-ness. i love the respect we demonstrate at times like this.)

[theprez98]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

Speaking from my former life, I have to say that it is not POSSIBLE for anyone who does not have a particular security clearance to recognize each and every detail that is, or should be, classified. The idea that an untrained (and uncleared) eye will be able to put things in such nice neat stacks is hopeful, but naive. Some items are going to be obvious, of course. Others will not.

Items may be classified not for their obvious value, but for their help in a "connect the dots" scenario. That is to say, a shopping list of words may all be on a list that causes a document to become classified, even though the rest of the information in that document is innocuous, because those words will assist an analyst employed by people who are not our friends into making educated assumptions about the data that isn't present.

It's really hard for me to not comment on most of what I've seen here, other than that I'd be happy to volunteer to be on the firing squad.

To me, the ONLY right thing to do is to give it back to the authorities, without looking at it, so that our analysts can know what was taken, and then try to determine what the exposure is.

Yes. Agreed 100%. Exactly what I was trying to say.

[shrdlu]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

Edit: This reads more strident than I'd like. In addition, I want to say that I like and respect Deviant, but can't help myself here.

they could go through the cables manually, with a fine eye for things that are (a) truly a matter of national security, life and death, etc (b) just normal state department drivel or actually (c) real, grave examples of misconduct on a national level.

Speaking from my former life, I have to say that it is not POSSIBLE for anyone who does not have a particular security clearance to recognize each and every detail that is, or should be, classified. The idea that an untrained (and uncleared) eye will be able to put things in such nice neat stacks is hopeful, but naive. Some items are going to be obvious, of course. Others will not.

Items may be classified not for their obvious value, but for their help in a "connect the dots" scenario. That is to say, a shopping list of words may all be on a list that causes a document to become classified, even though the rest of the information in that document is innocuous, because those words will assist an analyst employed by people who are not our friends into making educated assumptions about the data that isn't present.

It's really hard for me to not comment on most of what I've seen here, other than that I'd be happy to volunteer to be on the firing squad.

To me, the ONLY right thing to do is to give it back to the authorities, without looking at it, so that our analysts can know what was taken, and then try to determine what the exposure is.

[theprez98]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

they could go through the cables manually, with a fine eye for things that are (a) truly a matter of national security, life and death, etc (b) just normal state department drivel or actually (c) real, grave examples of misconduct on a national level.

Here's my problem with this approach: I'm pretty sure that the Wikileaks staff are not trained diplomats. They do not understand the context in which these cables are written, and thus truly do not have a real capacity to objectively evaluate these sorts of things.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

I appreciate the responses seen... and they really do seem to run the gamut from "they should just delete them" to "they should post them, hands-down"

my opinion on the matter is a bit in-between... i would feel that WikiLeaks would be most true to themselves and act as a journalistic enterprise (not exactly their stated mission, but it falls close enough to make the ethical questions relevant) if they were to do what Manning failed to do.

they could go through the cables manually, with a fine eye for things that are (a) truly a matter of national security, life and death, etc (b) just normal state department drivel or actually (c) real, grave examples of misconduct on a national level.

news organizations routinely withhold facts in category "A" from publication in the interest of saving lives and protecting citizens. similarly, the public is also not served by mass release of category "B" material because it just adds to data clutter and wastes time and resources.

but if there really is some info in category "C" ... Pentagon Papers type stuff... i could see WikiLeaks posting that in the interest of the greater need to disinfect with sunlight.

having the wherewithal to be cautious and fastidious in ways that Manning never was would be admirable... if undertaken with a keen eye for information security during the process of discovery and examination (after all, at least that's something we know WikiLeaks has the talent for, i'd hope)

just my $0.02... a half-formed notion, and i could be persuaded in other ways. but i would see that as something that the Times or CNN might do if they were given classified materials. (well, something they would do in the 70's... nowadays i predict most US based news organizations would piss their pants, lawyer-up, and immediately give in to all government demands)

[Thorn]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

I think it's difficult to reconcile an ethical action from the actor's POV. From my perspective, the ethical thing to do is to delete them. Assuming they have them, they are in receipt of stolen, classified materials. Although one could guess that from their point of view, they're not subject to US laws and can do whatever they want to. In fact, this is expressly what they wanted to do.

The Obama Administration should demand that Swedish authorities at least conduct an investigation to see if any Swedish laws have been broken in the process.

and Lamo should have had a little loyalty to the culture he was once part of.

Which culture is that exactly, criminals?

To imply that the "hacker culture" is composed of people who routinely commit computer crimes -or even support such activity- just furthers the stereotype of the 15 year-old pimply faced loner sitting in his mom's basement trying to crack the accounts at the local bank. Frankly, I resent the implication. I've been hacking computers for almost 40 years, and have never committed any crime, computer-related or not. That also goes for the majority of people I would consider hackers. Criminal activity doesn't enter into what they do at all.

[m9um9u]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

now that this has all happened... what do you think would be the most ethical thing for WikiLeaks to do with the cables? i surely have my own opinions, and am happy to share them in a bit. i'd also like to hear what others have to say, too.

In my opinion, ethics don't come into it; they should post the cables.

As for Lamo and Manning, I can't say I side with either of them. Manning was stupid. Lamo has clearly underlined the ex- in ex-hacker. I can understand Lamo in wanting to go to the authorities, as not many people get the opportunity to turn in something so major, and I can also understand Manning in wanting to share the fact that he'd leaked it. On the other hand, I can clearly see that Manning should have had the sense not to tell anyone who may have turned him in, and Lamo should have had a little loyalty to the culture he was once part of.

[theprez98]

Re: U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

now that this has all happened... what do you think would be the most ethical thing for WikiLeaks to do with the cables? i surely have my own opinions, and am happy to share them in a bit. i'd also like to hear what others have to say, too.

I think it's difficult to reconcile an ethical action from the actor's POV. From my perspective, the ethical thing to do is to delete them. Assuming they have them, they are in receipt of stolen, classified materials. Although one could guess that from their point of view, they're not subject to US laws and can do whatever they want to. In fact, this is expressly what they wanted to do.

Again assuming that there are in fact 260,000 of these cables, whistle-blowing just doesn't cut it here. I cannot be convinced that Manning much less read, or understand the context of all of these cables, to the extend that he was retrieving them as a whistle-blower.