Jolt in WikiLeaks Case: Feds Found Manning-Assange Chat Logs on Laptop

Jolt in WikiLeaks Case: Feds Found Manning-Assange Chat Logs on Laptop

www.wired.com

A government digital forensic expert examing the computer of accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning retrieved communications between Manning and an online chat user identified on Manning’s computer as “Julian Assange,” the name of the founder of the secret-spilling site that published hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables.

Investigators also found an Icelandic phone number for Assange, and a chat with a hacker located in the U.S., in which Manning says he’s responsible for the leaking of the “Collateral Murder” Apache helicopter video released by WikiLeaks in spring

(visit the link for the full news article)

Is this the break the prosecution has been waiting for? A direct link between Manning and Assange could put him in the legal crosshairs of the justice department and all but guarantee his extradition to the United States to face charges.

Assange hasnt been in the press much recently, I almost think he might be happy to have the spotlight on him again and that he would enjoy a long drawn out extradition process.

www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm still having a hard time getting there with Assange. I really am. Manning can rot in the pits of a fiery eternity. However, Assange did nothing better or worse than the leading news organizations do every day in search of a story. They interview bad guys, get source material that would be considered very questionable in other hands, and regularly do things in the name of researching a story and putting it together for the public which push the enveleope or just rip it to shreds sometimes.

SO be it.... I don't really object to the Freedom of the Press going to even those extremes. We wouldn't have known things like Watergate and what really mattered in the aftermath if not for men like Woodward and Bernstein. Under current laws, they'd probably be standing trial in a military court too.


They are getting their pound of flesh out of the guilty man. Manning. They need to be happy with getting the one who actually committed crimes and betrayed his oath and his nation. They REALLY need to lay off looking at ways to INVENT charges and justifications for going after anyone who so much as heard of Manning before the general public did. It's just wrong.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


wasn't he just exposing others who had broken their oath to the nation? he exposed others war crimes and he will always be a hero to anyone not from the US and many who are. If he is convicted all hell is going to be let loose on the US gov courtesy of the interwebs, so I guess its the classic catch 22 for the gov. I do feel he will get a pardon in time anyway if convicted. He is a hero of our times.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
I'm still having a hard time getting there with Assange. I really am. Manning can rot in the pits of a fiery eternity. However, Assange did nothing better or worse than the leading news organizations do every day in search of a story. They interview bad guys, get source material that would be considered very questionable in other hands, and regularly do things in the name of researching a story and putting it together for the public which push the enveleope or just rip it to shreds sometimes.

SO be it.... I don't really object to the Freedom of the Press going to even those extremes. We wouldn't have known things like Watergate and what really mattered in the aftermath if not for men like Woodward and Bernstein. Under current laws, they'd probably be standing trial in a military court too.

They are getting their pound of flesh out of the guilty man. Manning. They need to be happy with getting the one who actually committed crimes and betrayed his oath and his nation. They REALLY need to lay off looking at ways to INVENT charges and justifications for going after anyone who so much as heard of Manning before the general public did. It's just wrong.

I expect to be surrounded by red-necks any moment.
I am in favour of free information and free-speech.
I think manning should be awarded , as all the others, including Assange.
If they had not acted , us normal people would not have known about all the evil doings.

If a government acts wrong, it is still wrong.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
I'm still having a hard time getting there with Assange. I really am. Manning can rot in the pits of a fiery eternity. However, Assange did nothing better or worse than the leading news organizations do every day in search of a story. They interview bad guys, get source material that would be considered very questionable in other hands, and regularly do things in the name of researching a story and putting it together for the public which push the enveleope or just rip it to shreds sometimes.

SO be it.... I don't really object to the Freedom of the Press going to even those extremes. We wouldn't have known things like Watergate and what really mattered in the aftermath if not for men like Woodward and Bernstein. Under current laws, they'd probably be standing trial in a military court too.

They are getting their pound of flesh out of the guilty man. Manning. They need to be happy with getting the one who actually committed crimes and betrayed his oath and his nation. They REALLY need to lay off looking at ways to INVENT charges and justifications for going after anyone who so much as heard of Manning before the general public did. It's just wrong.

I think Manning got caught up in something he didn't think through long enough before getting involved with Assange.He's young and naive and didn't realize the situation he was putting himself in,maybe it's the mothering in me but I don't think he should pay the rest of his life for.A friend of mine guards him at Leavenworth,and says he is a bad way,very quiet and depressed.I believe in consequences,but with our government and the criminals that reside in D.C,what Manning did was nothing in comparison,exactly what did we learn from wikileaks?

Originally posted by SirMike


Assange hasnt been in the press much recently, I almost think he might be happy to have the spotlight on him again and that he would enjoy a long drawn out extradition process.

www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Erm, not too sure about that statement, 16/12 was the latest about him. www.guardian.co.uk...

www.guardian.co.uk... for details of recent coverage.

I am probably totally wrong but it all seems a bit of a put up job to blacken his name and reputation.

Since we a re offering opinions....

I think Manning is a kid.. poorly suited to a position of trust and resentful of authority. His intentions notwithstanding. I doubt he was equipped to realize the magnitude of the risk to which he could have been subjecting his countrymen.

However, I blame - more than Manning. His supervisors, trainers, commanders, and unit should ALL share the blame... and in some cases, I expect that is (or should be) recognized as such.

And, rather than the media and politician's favorite "what if" games....

As far as Assange, he was the 'businessman' who saw an opportunity and took it. If it had not been him, it was likely to happen anyway... This is what commercial intelligence companies do (let alone the so-called "press"). Manning was obviously looking to do what he did.

Besides, at this juncture, where we know just how easy it is to fabricate "digital" evidence (more than most,) it is not unreasonable to assume that those whose purposes towards locking down the internet for their secrecy could be just 'following through' on their threats to Assange for daring to expose the saintly political appointees running amok all over the globe to get "their" business deals done, while pretending that tax-payer dollars were 'supposed' to be used that way.

In those cables we saw exactly what the political parties have done to our nation, how they have subverted our government to their advantage in our name. Not one of them should go free because "we were never supposed to know." And they are appear clearly guilty of crimes which approach the same magnitude (if not idealistically worse) than Manning's feeble attempt to get revenge for whatever slight befell him during his service years.

Originally posted by SirMike


Is this the break the prosecution has been waiting for? A direct link between Manning and Assange could put him in the legal crosshairs of the justice department and all but guarantee his extradition to the United States to face charges.

Assange hasnt been in the press much recently, I almost think he might be happy to have the spotlight on him again and that he would enjoy a long drawn out extradition process.

www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Assange is not a US citizen, and as a member of the press he is protected more so than an average person.

Manning is screwed, I feel bad about it because I believe it was important for the public to see whast kind of shady stuff our leaders have been doing. But he signed a contract with the U.S.A. and violated the terms of said contract.

He will likely be convicted of treason and spend the bulk of his life at Leavenworth, but Assange really has nothing to worry about, short of Virginia farmboys taking him out anyway. I wouldn't put that past the folks at Langley.

If they go after Assange they have to go after all the other press who printed exerpts of the leaked files.

Manning upheld the constitution and that's the only thing he is sworn to do. There's no tie to Assange in that story except a virtual one. There's no tie to Manning except the same virtual tie. Everything virtual is easily manipulated. Since when is it ok for the military to kill children and journalists like in the Apache video? If (a big IF) allegations are ever proven, these men are on the side of humanity. However, virtual 'proof' and the expertise of someone who thinks and feels what online names may or may not have referred to is ludicrous at its' base. One cannot question a hard drive in order to determine who the data input came from. They got no case. Lamo (Llamo??) is the only witness and even he dealt with virtual entities. There's no case.

Would he really ID himself as "Julian Assange?"

Originally posted by trustnothing
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

wasn't he just exposing others who had broken their oath to the nation? he exposed others war crimes and he will always be a hero to anyone not from the US and many who are. If he is convicted all hell is going to be let loose on the US gov courtesy of the interwebs, so I guess its the classic catch 22 for the gov. I do feel he will get a pardon in time anyway if convicted. He is a hero of our times.

I think it's fair to say Daniel Ellsberg was exposing legitimate wrongs and following his conscience when the Pentagon Papers were released. I even respected whoever (Manning as it later turned out) released the Apache gunship footage of shooting up half a street and a couple reporters. Sounded good to me. Where Manning became a traitor I'd like to see put against a wall and shot is when he just vomitted classified data at such a rate and volume that even he couldn't possibly have GUESSED at what it contained as a whole, let alone known.

For all he knew, some of that ENORMOUS volume of material he just threw into the public domain could have contained details of HIS OWN BASE and how to over-run and destroy it. He couldn't have known...and that is the whole point.

Leaking info for conscience is to be respected, in my view.

Leaking just for the sake of leaking is something we call treason and when the nation had the guts to handle it properly, we executed people for. As it SHOULD be.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well.. he could have had a general knowledge, we don't know how such documents are filed, but I do agree to an extent I think he got a little over zealous. I supported WL until they started withholding documents.

On Mannings massive leak though, if he had cherry picked, sure he would have only released certain things, but there may be more and more important things that he couldn't have gotten out. There may be something big that justifies releasing a bunch that is yet to be released and it was kind of an all or nothing scenario. He would have been busted before he could get it all out if he was slow about it. We don't know that he wanted WL to release it how they did. What if the only way to get out the stuff that should be released was in the way he did it, and what if he knew that nothing in there would put the US at risk (as none of it has yet)? Then is it leaning a little more towards justified?

He did also out the US for spying on the UN I think it was.. which isn't very nice

reply to post by GogoVicMorrow

You certainly make fair points on it and there may have been technical issues involved in his downloading material and releasing it to Wikileaks. Listen to what we're debating the rationale for though. Downloading classified secret material off a classified government network he was entrusted and given a position of responsibility to access.

There are things done under the Anonymous banner I really dislike, but to the extent we understand who those people are, I respect that a lot more. At least they are on the outside, hacking IN and doing so in good faith. Unless found otherwise (and I'll be for their prosecution too, if so) we can assume they ARE hackers and not entrusted members of the networks being compromised.

To put this another way......There are people out there that would love to see ATS compromised and killed outright. Should we be equally supportive of a hacker that hits this site, steals all our account details, and spews it across websites of the political lean they happen to be? What if it's out of deep conviction to their way of thinking? How about political reasons? This is how people are trying to explain Manning's treachery.

Lets make it proper for a comparison. How about that person is actually high staff of ATS and in the position to burn ALL of US because the Owners here trusted them to work in that position? I think we'd be blowing steam from our ears and looking to do some nasty things to a leaker who could rightly be called a traitor to the users he was trusted to serve, huh?

Well.. Manning was trusted to safeguard the material for HIS users, which were his fellow Soliders and the United States Government he drew his paycheck and benefits from. I'd have at least found SOME respect if he'd just stolen the stuff and AWOL'ed to make his protest complete and up front.

No.. he vomitted this material and then tried to hide in plain site...among the fellow troops he'd just DEEPLY betrayed. It just has no justification on any level, under any circumstances. Not how he did it and not with so much it took weeks for entire staffs of people to get through.

Manning is not and never will be a hero, He is a coward and will be dealt with as such. We have a system in place for exactly what he wanted to do, had he used it he would not be in jail right now. I hope he is given death.

I would pull the trigger if they would let me, No need to waste tax money on the chair or even waste the money on injection. I'll spend the 50 cents my self on a 45 cal to put between his eyes.

Wow. Some of you are really bloodthirsty. To me that's more sickening than anything Manning did during an ILLEGAL war.

Originally posted by Amadeo
Wow. Some of you are really bloodthirsty. To me that's more sickening than anything Manning did during an ILLEGAL war.

Well some of us don't like traitors. That is more sickening than any thing the ignorant masses see in the situation. The damage the kid did. We did it to the Rosenburgs for less We should do the same to this kid.

Though I don't pretend to know all the issue at stake with Bradley Manning, I think there has to be a safe venue for whistle blowing when there has been wrong doings no matter what confidentiality documents have been signed. We all are morally obligated to expose the corrupt in all walks of society, whether political, environmental, military or corporate.
I guess I am naive believing we can do better as a society, psychopaths have a strangle hold on all things righteous!
brice

Originally posted by brice
Though I don't pretend to know all the issue at stake with Bradley Manning, I think there has to be a safe venue for whistle blowing when there has been wrong doings no matter what confidentiality documents have been signed. We all are morally obligated to expose the corrupt in all walks of society, whether political, environmental, military or corporate.
I guess I am naive believing we can do better as a society, psychopaths have a strangle hold on all things righteous!
brice

Yes in the case of Manning, he ignored the protocol for Whistle blowing. Instead choosing to give the information to a foreign entity. He committed Treason and as such he should be treated as such. Regardless of his intentions he broke military law.

His commander should have had him shot than and there on the site. As should have been his duty and well within his rights as commander, during wartime operations.