The Feds Have the Goods on Manning – And Assange Too
It is well known that I think that Bradley Manning’s actions in leaking classified and top secret files to Wikileaks was tantamount to treason. Also, I think that the release of the files by Wikileaks was tantamount to conspiracy to commit treason. Conspiracy is supposed to be coordinated actions by known accomplices, but with the advent of social media and the Internet, you don’t have to know your co-conspirators anymore- just to work toward a common criminal enterprise. Wikileaks provided the platform to leak stolen classified files, and Manning was just a willing accomplice. I never once imagined that Manning and Julian Assange, the owner of the data leak site, had actually worked together to exfiltrate the data. The Army laid out its case against Manning and said they have the goods on Assange too.
From Wired here:
The government finished making its case against accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning Thursday morning with a 60-minute closing statement that piled on new details and exhibits, including snippets of 15 pages of chats allegedly between the Army intelligence analyst and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The prosecution flashed three chat logs onscreen that purportedly show correspondence between Manning and Assange discussing uploading so-called JTF-GITMO documents — classified assessment reports about Guantanamo Bay detainees. The chats also refer to two U.S. State Department cables about Reykjavik, Iceland, as well as a request from Manning to help him crack a password so that he could log onto his work SIPRnet computer anonymously.
The evidence clearly showed that Manning abused his security clearance and intelligence training to leak damaging information “using WikiLeaks’ ‘Most Wanted list as his guiding light.” Prior to Manning’s leaks to the organization, WikiLeaks had published a wishlist of documents and data it hoped leakers would send it.
Manning’s classified work computer accessed the State Department server 794,000 times in order to steal more than 250,000 cables that WikiLeaks subsequently published.
On March 8, 2010 at 1:42am while Manning was working the nightshift in the SCIF, he burned the JTF-GITMO documents to a CD and immediately thereafter began uploading them to WikiLeaks.
In another chat, dated March 8, 2010, Manning asked “Nathaniel Frank,” believed to be Assange, about help in cracking the main password on his classified SIPRnet computer so that he could log on to it anonymously. He asked “Frank” if he had experience cracking IM NT hashes (presumably it’s a mistype and he meant NTLM for the Microsoft NT LAN Manager). “Frank” replied yes, that they had “rainbow tables” for doing that. Manning then sent him what looked like a hash.
Investigators say they located copies of the Iraq and Afghanistan action reports on an SD memory card belonging to Manning, a spreadsheet of scripts designed to scrape State Department cables, and copies of the disturbing Apache helicopter video, published by WikiLeaks under the title “Collateral Murder.”
Wikileaks, which donated only $15,000 of a promised $50,000 to Manning’s defense fund, complicated Manning’s defense by publishing the Iran and Afghanistan war and the trove of State Department cables after Manning was arrested.
I had posted a blog that mentioned that Assange had went into hiding after the Manning arrest, and how Assange’s supporters had speculated that the CIA had nabbed him. But Assange was actually working to get himself into a country where it would be difficult to extradite him.
So Assange personally conspired with Manning to divulge classified information. That makes Assange a spy, folks. We need to get Assange.
