"We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks"

(10:23:34 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: I’m a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection...

(1:55:10 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: i told you, none of this is for print

The initial presentation of the story was that Bradley Manning was a pure political figure, like a Daniel Ellsberg. I don’t think that’s a sufficient explanation of why he did what he did. I think he was alienated; he was in agony personally over a number of issues. He was lonely and very needy. And I think he had an identity crisis. He had this idea that he was in the wrong body and wanted to become a woman, and these issues are not just prurient. I think it raises big issues about who whistleblowers are, because they are alienated people who don’t get along with people around them, which motivates them to do what they do.

god knows what happens now. hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. if not... than 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

...the people in the bongo truck were merely attempting to assist the wounded. The people in the van were not a threat but merely "good samaritans". The most alarming aspect of the video to me, however, was the seemly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging and seemed to not value human life by referring to them as quote "dead bastards" unquote and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers. At one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl to safety. The individual is seriously wounded. Instead of calling for medical attention to the location, one of the aerial weapons team crew members verbally asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage. For me, this seems similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass. While saddened by the aerial weapons team crew's lack of concern about human life, I was disturbed by the response of the discovery of injured children at the scene. In the video, you can see that the bongo truck driving up to assist the wounded individual. In response the aerial weapons team crew – as soon as the individuals are a threat, they repeatedly request for authorization to fire on the bongo truck and once granted they engage the vehicle at least six times. Shortly after the second engagement, a mechanized infantry unit arrives at the scene. Within minutes, the aerial weapons team crew learns that children were in the van and despite the injuries the crew exhibits no remorse. Instead, they downplay the significance of their actions, saying quote "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle" unquote. The aerial weapons team crew members sound like they lack sympathy for the children or the parents. Later in a particularly disturbing manner, the aerial weapons team verbalizes enjoyment at the sight of one of the ground vehicles driving over a body – or one of the bodies. [...] For me it's all a big mess, and I am left wondering what these things mean, and how it all fits together. It burdens me emotionally. [...]

I hoped that the public would be as alarmed as me about the conduct of the aerial weapons team crew members. I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan are targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare. After the release I was encouraged by the response in the media and general public, who observed the aerial weapons team video. As I hoped, others were just as troubled – if not more troubled that me by what they saw. [...]

For me, the SigActs represented the on the ground reality of both the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. [...] I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as [missed word] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan. I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday. [...] [I] stated I had information that needed to be shared with the world. I wrote that the information would help document the true cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [...] I considered my options one more time. Ultimately, I felt that the right thing to do was to release the SigActs. [...]

The more I read the cables, the more I came to the conclusion that this was the type of information that should become public. I once read and used a quote on open diplomacy written after the First World War and how the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other. I thought these cables were a prime example of a need for a more open diplomacy. Given all of the Department of State cables that I read, the fact that most of the cables were unclassified, and that all the cables have a SIPDIS caption. I believe that the public release of these cables would not damage the United States, however, I did believe that the cables might be embarrassing, since they represented very honest opinions and statements behind the backs of other nations and organizations.

"Claims my teenage nickname was Mendax, “given to lying”, instead of Splendide Mendax, “nobly untruthful”, which is a teenage joke on handles being inherently untrue. It is self-referential, not a psychoanalysis 20 years ahead of its time!"

Don’t damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don’t change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information.

There is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to — what's the expression — surf through these various computers.

Defense: Now, you spoke about your examination on the 22 machine and the 40 machine and you did a complete scrub of those machines, correct?

Witness: No, sir.

Defense: You spoke about some of the machines you were looking for. You were also looking for what's known as the WikiLeaks most wanted list, correct?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Defense: Something that when you were going through both the 22 and the 40 machine, that's something you were looking for?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Defense: And let's talk about the 22 machine first. As you went over that bite by bite and bit by bit you never found any evidence that PFC Manning had seen that, correct?

Witness: Sir, I apologize, I don't remember exactly what was on the entire list. Do you have that --

Defense: I guess let me clarify, I'm sorry. The actual list itself?

Witness: Right. Oh, no, sir; I did not see the list.

Defense: So there was no evidence that on the 22 machine a user had viewed that list?

Witness: Correct.

Defense: No evidence that a user ever had saved that list?

Witness: No, sir.

Defense: Or printed it?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Defense: Or done anything with it?

Witness: Correct.

Defense: And the same would be true for the 40 machine as well, correct?

Witness: Yes, sir.

No one associated with the WLO pressured me into giving more information. The decisions that I made to send documents and information to the WLO and website were my own decisions, and I take full responsibility for my actions."

WikiLeaks' system uses the Tor onion router across multiple servers in multiple jurisdictions, stripping out submission metadata at each Tor node, meaning anonymisation occurs early in the process and long before information reaches WikiLeaks web servers. WikiLeaks does not keep logs, hence logs cannot be seized.

(02:56:46 PM) bradass87: he knows very little about me
(02:56:54 PM) bradass87: he takes source protection uber-seriously
(02:57:01 PM) bradass87: “lie to me” he says
(02:57:06 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: Really. Interesting.
(02:57:34 PM) bradass87: he wont work with you if you reveal too much about yourself.

"Our technology does not permit us to understand whether someone is one of our sources or not, because the best way to keep a secret is to never have it." Julian Assange.

• Would halting publication set a precedent that would lead to the "hostage taking" of other people alleged to be WikiLeaks sources?
• Would halting publication be interpreted as substantiating allegations that Manning was a source?
• Would halting publication be a betrayal of WikiLeaks' promises to publish?
• Would halting publication also halt political support for Manning?

Assange: The Kabul files contain no information related to current troop movements. The source went through their own harm-minimization process and instructed us to conduct our usual review to make sure there was not a significant chance of innocents being negatively affected. We understand the importance of protecting confidential sources, and we understand why it is important to protect certain US and ISAF sources.

Due to his increasingly erratic behaviour, in late February 2010 WikiLeaks issued a policy directive that Domscheit-Berg not be permitted contact with source material.

After February 2010 Domscheit-Berg's input within WikiLeaks was restricted to the maintenance of some WikiLeaks back-ups within Germany, and as German spokesperson. His role as spokesperson within Germany was removed after he gave a number of interviews following the 5 April 2010 release of Collateral Murder in which he misdescribed himself to the press.

"[Daniel Schmitt] rejected allegations that the group’s publication of leaked US government documents was a threat to America’s national security or put lives at risk. “For this reason, we conveyed a request to the White House prior to the publication, asking that the International Security Assistance Force provide us with reviewers,” Schmitt said. “That request remains open. However, the Pentagon has stated that it is not interested in ‘harm minimization’ and has not contacted us, directly, or indirectly to discuss this offer.”

It's actually a very hard engineering task to supply 2-5% of the entire world internet connected population at a single moment with material. And so we are a small organization trying to understand how to do that and do that in a secure way. As a result we have built up during that period an enormous backlog of whistleblower disclosures.

A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. WikiLeaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers.

[T]he review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure.

Let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time...

Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought...

Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for US foreign policy? I think fairly modest.

We saw the New York Times as, yes, influential within its market, but on the other hand so corrupting of the material that we were trying to get out, and so hostile to us as an organisation in order to save itself, in order to distance itself, that we were not only betraying the impact of the material, but we were shooting ourselves as an organisation every time we work with the New York Times, because the way they try to save themselves from the lash-back by military apologists in the United States was by attacking us, and therefore increasing the perceived separation.

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