WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

Bradley Manning's laptop scrutinized in WikiLeaks trial
(CBS News / The Associated Press, June 12, 2013)

Army computer crimes investigator Mark Johnson testified Wednesday that he found evidence of chats between Manning and Julian Assange, who founded the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Manning faces numerous charges, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence.

Johnson also testified that Manning used the alias Nathaniel Frank, a historian who wrote a book critical of the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Manning's defense has said he was a naive but good-intentioned soldier whose struggle to fit in as a gay man in the military made him feel he needed to do something to make a difference.

The 25-year-old Oklahoma native has said he didn't believe that the more than 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and video clips he leaked while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad would hurt national security.

Yesterday, prosecutors presented evidence that Manning's leaks compromised sensitive information in dozens of categories. The evidence was in the form of written statements that defense and prosecution lawyers accepted as substitutions for live testimony. It was read aloud in court.

In one statement, a classification expert, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Martin Nehring, said his review of Afghanistan and Iraq battlefield reports revealed techniques for neutralizing improvised explosives, the name of an enemy target, the names of criminal suspects and troop movements.

The evidence also covered leaked material from the Army's investigation into a 2009 airstrike in Afghanistan's Farah province. The investigation concluded a bomb from a B-1 bomber killed 26 civilians, at least 78 Taliban fighters and five Afghan police officers. Local officials said the attack killed 140 villagers.

Manning has acknowledged sending WikiLeaks material from the Farah investigation, including several videos, although none were ever posted on the group's website.

On Tuesday, the defense elicited testimony that appeared to cripple government efforts to prove an espionage charge related to the Farah video. Manning has acknowledged sending the material to WikiLeaks sometime after late March 2010; the government alleges the transmission was in late November 2009. The disputed date became an issue before trial, when prosecutors rejected Manning's offer to plead guilty to a reduced version of the charge, provided the date was changed.

Army computer crimes investigator David Shaver testified on cross-examination the only evidence of Manning obtaining any video associated with Farah was downloaded April 17, 2010.

First Amendment lawyer James Goodale, author or "Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles," said a Manning conviction on any one of eight espionage counts or a federal computer fraud charge would enable the government to charge civilians, including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

"In Assange's case relative to Manning, they can treat each of them as co-conspirators and prosecute them," Goodale said in an interview.

Prosecutors also presented a statement from Manning's aunt, Debra Van Alstyne, who talked about her interview with Army investigators at her Maryland home in June 2010, shortly after Manning's arrest.

She said one of them asked her how Manning felt about the Army.

"I knew that Brad was proud of his job and of being in the Army," Van Alstyne said in her statement.

She also said an investigator collected a digital camera data card Manning had sent her that was found to contain some of the leaked Iraq battlefield reports and video of an Apache helicopter attack that WikiLeaks had posted, showing civilians being killed.

She said Manning called her after his arrest and asked if she had watched the helicopter video. She said he told her the video would be "big news" and that it would make a "big splash" in America.

it matters that you have betrayed a confidence.

I, for one, have no use for you - bye....

It is sad you can't understand the gravity of Treason.

Cables Reveal Background of Pro-Dictator U.S. Policy

by Ted Rall

NEW YORK--After the Soviet collapse in 1991 U.S. policy toward Central Asia was transparently cynical: support the dictators, screw the people.

As the U.S. stood by and watched, corrupt autocrats looted the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Dissidents were jailed, massacred--even boiled.

Well, actually, the U.S. was anything but passive. They negotiated deals for oil and gas pipelines. They rented airbases after 9/11. They poured in tens of millions of American tax dollars--all of which wound up in secret bank accounts belonging to the dictators and their families. Meanwhile, average citizens lived in abject poverty.

During trips to Central Asia the locals constantly ask me: "Why doesn't America stop supporting [insert name of corrupt dictator here] so we can kill him and free ourselves?"

Poor, naïve people. They believe our rhetoric. They think we like democracy. Actually, we're all about the looting. Dictators are easier to deal with than parliaments. One handshake and a kickback, that's all you need with a dictator.

Central Asia only had one democratically elected president, Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan. George W. Bush ordered the CIA to depose him in a coup.

Americans who care about human rights have long wondered: Is the State Department stupid and/or naïve? Or did the diplomats in Tashkent and other capitals of unspeakable misery understand the brutal and vile nature of Central Asia's authoritarian leaders?

An examination of the WikiLeaks data dump answers that question: Yes.

Hell yes.

Like those from concerning more prominent countries, the WikiLeaks cables on the Central Asian republics can be funny. President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, a U.S. "ally in the war on terror" who seized power in a palace coup following the death of Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niyazov, is described as "the 'decider' for the state of Turkmenistan." This is true. Turkmenistan is an absolute dictatorship in which millions starve while Berdimuhamedov's inner circle feasts on the profits from the world's largest reserves of natural gas.

A December 2009 cable describes America's pet autocrat as "vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative, a practiced liar, 'a good actor,' and vindictive."

According to an unnamed source, the outwardly conservative dictator has a Russian mistress named Marina, with whom he has a 14-year-old daughter. Though Berdy's power may be limitless, his intellect is not. "Berdimuhamedov does not like people who are smarter than he is," says the cable. "Since he's not a very bright guy, our source offered, he is suspicious of a lot of people."

No one's perfect. Least of all America's allies in Central Asia.

On the other side of the steppe in Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev presides over the world's largest oil reserves with an iron fist. Among his greatest hits: the convenient "suicides" of his top two political opponents a few months before a presidential "election." The two men apparently shot themselves in the back of the head, then bound their own hands behind their backs and dropped into a ditch outside Almaty.

Needless to say, Nazarbayev is another valuable U.S. ally in the war on terror.

But that doesn't stop American gossip. Nazarbayev's defense minister, says an embassy staffer in Astana, "appears to enjoy loosening up in the tried and true 'homo sovieticus' style--i.e., drinking oneself into a stupor." But alcoholism isn't illegal. Graft is--and the president is public enemy number one.

"In 2007, President Nazarbayev's son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, celebrated his 41st birthday in grand style," explains an April 2008 cable. "At a small venue in Almaty, he hosted a private concert with some of Russia's biggest pop stars. The headliner, however, was Elton John, to whom he reportedly paid one million pounds for this one-time appearance." How did he come up with all that coin? "Timur Kulibayev is currently the favored presidential son-in-law, on the Forbes 500 list of billionaires (as is his wife separately), and the ultimate controller of 90% of the economy of Kazakhstan," states a January 2010 missive.

Membership has its privileges. The U.S. has never spoken out against corruption or human rights abuses in Kazakhstan.

So it's clear: American diplomats have no illusions about their brutal allies. Interestingly, Central Asia's overlords have a dismally accurate view of corruption in the U.S. government.

"Listen, almost everyone at the top [of the Kazakh regime] is confused," First Vice President Maksat Idenov told the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan early this year. "They're confused by the corrupt excesses of capitalism. 'If Goldman Sachs executives can make $50 million a year and then run America's economy in Washington, what's so different about what we do?' they ask."

No response was provided.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/08-5

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/edward-snowden-worst-fear-not-realised

Edward Snowden's worst fear has not been realised – thankfully
The NSA whistleblower's only concern was that his disclosures would be met with apathy. Instead, they're leading to real reform



In my first substantive discussion with Edward Snowden, which took place via encrypted online chat, he told me he had only one fear. It was that the disclosures he was making, momentous though they were, would fail to trigger a worldwide debate because the public had already been taught to accept that they have no right to privacy in the digital age.

Snowden, at least in that regard, can rest easy. The fallout from the Guardian's first week of revelations is intense and growing.

If "whistleblowing" is defined as exposing secret government actions so as to inform the public about what they should know, to prompt debate, and to enable reform, then Snowden's actions are the classic case.

US polling data, by itself, demonstrates how powerfully these revelations have resonated. Despite a sustained demonization campaign against him from official Washington, a Time magazine poll found that 54% of Americans believe Snowden did "a good thing", while only 30% disagreed. That approval rating is higher than the one enjoyed by both Congress and President Obama.

While a majority nonetheless still believes he should be prosecuted, a plurality of Americans aged 18 to 34, who Time says are "showing far more support for Snowden's actions", do not. Other polls on Snowden have similar results, including a Reuters finding that more Americans see him as a "patriot" than a "traitor".

On the more important issue – the public's views of the NSA surveillance programs – the findings are even more encouraging from the perspective of reform. A Gallup poll last week found that more Americans disapprove (53%) than approve (37%) of the two NSA spying programs revealed last week by the Guardian.

As always with polling data, the results are far from conclusive or uniform. But they all unmistakably reveal that there is broad public discomfort with excessive government snooping and that the Snowden-enabled revelations were met with anything but the apathy he feared.

But, most importantly of all, the stories thus far published by the Guardian are already leading to concrete improvements in accountability and transparency. The ACLU quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the legality, including the constitutionality, of the NSA's collection of the phone records of all Americans. The US government must therefore now defend the legality of its previously secret surveillance program in open court.

These revelations have also had serious repercussions in Congress. The NSA and other national security state officials have been forced to appear several times already for harsh and hostile questioning before various committees.

To placate growing anger over having been kept in the dark and misled, the spying agency gave a private briefing to rank-and-file members of Congress about programs of which they had previously been unaware. Afterward, Democratic Rep Loretta Sanchez warned that the NSA programs revealed by the Guardian are just "the tip of the iceberg". She added: "I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way, what astounded most of us, too."

It is hardly surprising, then, that at least some lawmakers are appreciative rather than scornful of these disclosures. Democratic Sen Jon Tester was quite dismissive of the fear-mongering from national security state officials, telling MSNBC that "I don't see how [what Snowden did] compromises the security of this country whatsoever". He added that, despite being a member of the Homeland Security Committee, "quite frankly, it helps people like me become aware of a situation that I wasn't aware of before".

Defense attorney: Bradley Manning a whistleblower
(DAVID DISHNEAU and PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press, 07.26.13)

U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is a whistleblower who wanted to inform the American public about the troubling things he saw in the war zone, and the soldier is willing to pay the price for giving secrets to WikiLeaks, his defense attorney said Friday.

During closing arguments, attorney David Coombs disputed what prosecutors said a day earlier, that Manning was a traitor whose only mission as an intelligence analyst was to give classified information to the anti-secrecy website and bask in the attention.

"He's not seeking attention. He saying he's willing to accept the price" for what he has done, Coombs said.

Manning, 25, is charged with 21 offenses, but the most serious is aiding the enemy. A conviction on that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.

Coombs said the prosecution cherry-picked Manning's chats with convicted computer hacker Adrian Lamo to make their case. He urged the judge to read the entire chat log to put things in context.

For example, he said the prosecution cited a line Manning wrote to Lamo: "If you had unprecedented access to classified networks, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, for eight-plus months, what would you do?"

Coombs pointed out Manning also wrote, "Hypothetical question: If you had free reign over classified networks over a long period of time, if you saw incredible things, awful things, things that belonged in the public domain and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C., what would you do?"

Lamo turned the soldier in to authorities in May 2010.

Coombs also said Manning's chat with Lamo about Hillary Clinton and other diplomats around the world having a heart attack over what was leaked was taken out of context.

A military judge, not a jury, is hearing the case at Manning's request. Army Col. Denise Lind will deliberate after closing arguments, but it's not clear when she will rule.

Speaking for more than five hours Thursday, Maj. Ashden Fein told the judge Manning gave secrets to a group of anarchists, knowing the material would be seen by the terrorist group al-Qaida.

"WikiLeaks was merely the platform which Pfc. Manning used to ensure all the information was available for the world, including enemies of the United States," Fein said.

Coombs has said Manning was troubled by what he saw in the war — and at the same time was struggling as a gay man in the era of "don't ask don't tell." Those struggles made him want to do something to make a difference and he hoped revealing what was going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. diplomacy would inspire debate and reform in American foreign and military policy.

A native of Crescent, Okla., Manning has acknowledged giving WikiLeaks some 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and videos. But he says he didn't believe the information would harm troops in Afghanistan and Iraq or threaten national security.

"The amount of the documents in this case, actually is the best evidence that he was discreet in what he chose because if he was indiscriminate, if he was systematically harvesting, we wouldn't be talking about a few hundred thousand documents — we'd be talking about millions of documents," Coombs said.

Coombs showed three snippets of video from a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack Manning leaked, showing troops firing on a small crowd of men on a Baghdad sidewalk, killing at least nine men, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver. Coombs said the loss of civilian lives shocked and horrified the young soldier.

"You have to look at that from the point of view of a guy who cared about human life," Coombs said.

Prosecutors argued Manning only cared about himself. The government and Manning's attorneys also disagree on when the soldier started giving material to WikiLeaks. Prosecutors believe it was in late 2009, shortly after his deployment in Iraq began. Manning has said it started in February the following year.

The verdict and any sentence will be reviewed, and could be reduced, by the commander of the Military District of Washington, currently Maj. Gen. Jeffery S. Buchanan.

Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy, guilty of other charges
(United Press International, July 30, 2013)

A U.S. military judge acquitted Pfc. Bradley Manning of aiding the enemy Tuesday but convicted him of five counts of violating the espionage act.

The verdict, delivered at Fort Meade in Maryland, was came in shortly after 1 p.m., CNN reported. Col. Denise Lind, who heard the case without a jury at Manning's request, announced Monday she had decided on a verdict.

Manning, 25, who admitted releasing 700,000 secret documents to WikiLeaks, faced life in prison if he found guilty of aiding the enemy. He pleaded guilty to 10 lesser counts, which the judge accepted, CNN said. .

The leak was the largest ever in U.S. history and Manning was the first leaker to be charged with aiding the enemy. His lawyer and supporters described him as a whistle blower.

Manning has been in custody since 2010.

The government argued providing defense-related information to an entity that published it for the world to see constituted aiding the enemy because the world includes adversaries such as al-Qaida who could read the documents online.

Manning in February admitted being WikiLeaks' source for the material, which included videos of a 2007 Baghdad airstrike and a 2009 airstrike in Afghanistan in which civilians were killed. The leaked information also included 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables and 500,000 Army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs.

The disclosures were the largest set of restricted documents ever leaked to the public -- much of it published by WikiLeaks or its media partners from April to November 2010.

Manning's guilty pleas carry a possible sentence of 20 years in prison.

The court-martial began June 3 and wrapped up with closing arguments last week.

The prosecution portrayed Manning as an "anarchist" and a traitor who wanted to "make a splash," knowing the leaked documents would end up in the hands of al-Qaida.

His defense lawyer portrayed him as a naive but well-intentioned humanistic soldier who wanted the released documents to spark debate about U.S. foreign policy and bring about change.

Defense attorney David Coombs said Manning was selective about which databases he released to avoid causing harm.

Before beginning her deliberations, Lind said the trial's sentencing phase would begin Wednesday.

Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy, guilty of other charges

Both Bradley Manning and the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange were guilty of recklessly flooding the media with secret information with little apparent concern for what happened subsequently to the people who had been named. But they also enabled us to learn about atrocities committed by the US military which would otherwise have been covered up indefinitely.

We know why governments and military establishments want to keep their dirty secrets to themselves. We also know why they must not be allowed to. Freedom of information is one of the cornerstones of democracy, and as John le Carre reminded us this week, whistleblowers like Bradley Manning are vital to the functioning of societies that aspire to be free - however obnoxious that notion may be to their rulers

Still waiting for charges to be laid against those involved in the 'helicopter attack' 'Collateral murder' incident.

Still waiting for charges to be laid against those involved in the 'helicopter attack' 'Collateral murder' incident.