Sott.net
Does anyone else find the following strangely timed or possibly connected:
2 years ago there was a counterintelligence investigation into Wikileaks by the US Army, which concluded that the only effective way to slow down or stop the site would be to oust the identities of the contributors. The report also found that the site was a threat to not only the Army but to several countries, and would continue to be for some time. (Someone subsequently leaked the classified report and it's finding to Wikileaks in what I've often considered to be a rare case of literal grand irony :D) http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf and Sott.net
It has already been presented that surveillance and harassment operations recently intensified on the organization. Sott.net and http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2...parently-acting-on-plan-to-destroy-wikileaks/
There seems to have been quite a number of exchanges between Wikileaks and Wired, via Twitter in the last 48 hours. http://trueslant.com/colinhorgan/20...dley-manning-wired-adrian-lamo-kevin-poulsen/
Wikileaks seems to insinuate that Wired was somehow complicit to the whole operation "Poulsen&Lamo have a long history of acting as a journalistic duo.Just how complicit was Wired" and "Did Wired break journalism’s sacred oath? Lamo&Poulson call themselves journalists.Echoes of Olshansky shopping Diaz?"
That article also goes into detail about who Poulsen is (a famous ex-hacker), and contains another Tweet from Wikileaks saying that they are not aware of ever having received the 260,000 documents. Although, given the anonymity at even the deepest levels of wikileaks, where I'm reading that many members have never met to this day and are known to each other only by initials, I suppose it is very possible that they do have it, but that the person managing the Twitter feed (Assange?) is intentionally not able to confirm their existence or access them in order to maintain plausible deniability, perhaps for their ultimate disclosure. One can hope!
The New Yorker ran a very detailed 11 page piece on Assange. Interesting to again note that both publications are owned by Conde Nast (which is itself owned by the media conglomerate Advance Publications). http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=3
Now after reading the Wired article http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/ and many others circulating last few days, there are a few questions that come to mind...
Did Lamo ever actually see the cables? I do not see where it is ever mentioned that he was privy to the contents of the files he felt so morally obligated to prevent the leak of. From Wired, "Lamo says he felt he had no choice but to turn in Manning"
Lamos seems apologetic for his actions. He felt he had no choice in what he did, and has also said that he hopes one day those involved will forgive him. Does this sound like someone acting out of conscience, or someone who was strong handed into cooperation? Just a thought.
There is one mention I could find of Lamos being exposed to information, also from Wired: "The Bureau was particularly interested in information that Manning gave Lamo about an apparently-sensitive military cybersecurity matter, Lamo said."
Lamo then discounts this as actually uninteresting, and then references some broad opinions given to him by Manning about what might happen once the release took place as being the more interesting news to focus on.
One theory I have not discounted is the possibility that Manning is being used as a useful idiot, that this was a trap a year in the making, to ultimately discredit wikileaks. Or worse - that Manning could potentially be an "actor" of sorts in this whole charade. Mix in Lamo's participation, and the whole story just seems to become over-glossed with normality. Or worse - someone else entirely, even a foreign government, may actually be in possession or control (and has been the whole time) of these documents with far worse intentions than "freedom of information." More speculation on that later.
Or another possibility entirely: Could this entire event be an operation conceived of as a result of the above mentioned cointel inevstigation? The videos were leaked intentionally, and perhaps the cables don't even exist? Either way - the credibility of Wikileaks has been irreparably damaged, which was after all the stated conclusion of said investigation.
As always, it comes back to the age old question, "Who benefits?"
Clearly not Lamo - although perhaps he was told if he did not "play his role" there would be consequences
Manning who is currently being detained, but for some reason not charged doesn't seem to benefit much. It also makes no sense whatsoever that he would jeopardize the release of what he worked so hard to obtain and disseminate, not to mention throwing away his career and freedom as well - just to endlessly brag to a hacker he had never met about the coming total anarchy as a result of it all. Could any human being, let alone one who spends a year selectively choosing almost 300,000 classified documents to leak, ever be so naive as to think that suddenly, on the eve of transmission, that he should no longer keep this all a secret, and that he should attach his name to it and brag about what is about to happen to someone he has never met?
What if Manning is not the source? Of any of the leaks?
Wired and New Yorker and Conde Nast benefit - they have sold a lot of magazines
Poulsen (who has a pre-existing relationship with Lamos and is a senior editor at Wired) benefits by having the byline on the breaking story.
Kim Zetter (the other author of the Wired article) "is a journalist who has written extensively about issues related to Judaism and Israel for newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Jerusalem Post. Her studies of the Kabbalah began more than ten years ago when she lived and worked in Israel among the Hassidic community." from http://www.conari.com/authors/author_detail.jsp?supplier_id=97. She also writes extensively about internet security, hackers, and cryptography, including previous articles on wikileaks. Just an interesting sidenote.
Also noteworthy is that wikileaks points to the following article and suggests everyone study the quotes from Lamos carefully: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10265430.stm
"At the moment he gave me the information, it was basically a suicide pact."
"I didn't want any more FBI agents knocking at my door." [emphases mine]
Curiously, this article still does not shed any light on whether or not Lamos ever saw any of the files Manning claims to have sent to Wikileaks. In fact it would almost appear that only Manning has seen the files, but the few comments revealed by him have been cryptic at best, relating to never ending international diplomacy revelations of a climategate nature, but on a global level.
This article from yesterday http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/unfriendly_fire.php seeks to sort out wiki's allegations/implications against Lamo and Poulsen.
It almost appears as if Lamo was blabbering on about this for quite some time before deciding to turn in Manning. Do you think it was enough blabber that someone picked up on it? Back again to Lamo possibly being manipulated into doing all this (and with his criminal record, and current day successful career, this would not be difficult I imagine). Again, just more speculation here.
The article later quotes Poulsen:
But wait a second...Poulsen and Lamo are long term associates and friends, both personally and professionally. Poulsen already admitted that Lamo made several generalized statements about the affair increasing in intensity leading up to the handing over of Manning to authorities. Should we really believe at first glance that Poulsen had no role whatsoever in influencing Lamo to turn over Manning? I can understand why he would deny it now (which he hasn't - instead it is just cleverly repeated over and over that the authorities already had the info when the article ran, or that he didn't physically have a copy of the chat logs until afterwards), but it seems to me like a major piece of the timeline is missing. "Something happened" and probably a few somethings that led to this ultimate action of turning in Manning...And why the distinction between "the time they reported it " and "the time whey were doing serious reporting on it?" How many different periods of time were involved in this reporting anyhow?
That last quoted sentence about the chat logs also seems pretty telling to me that Lamos was not privy to any of the actual cables he was so concerned about, and that his concerns were indeed based on Manning's emotional releases in a conversation regarding the whole thing. How odd.
This article http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-...nning-allegedly-downloaded/?cid=hp:mainpromo1 shows just how worried and concern the US government is - they seem fairly convinced that the documents are about to be released.
Wikileaks has said earlier today via Twitter that they have not yet been contacted in this regard.
Yet another interesting article from yesterday http://www.techeye.net/internet/wikileaks-cheesed-off-after-journalist-revealed-sources says that Poulsen reported just one month ago that "that Lamo was diagnosed with Asperger's, after being institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital."
This was also reported by Poulsen at Wired http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/lamo/ In that account you can see that he was forcibly hospitalized for many days in a psych institution after exhibiting odd behvaior to a police officer. He says that he worries that despite his diagnosis and subsequent medications prescribed as a result of this episode, that he still worries he would be again forcibly institutionalized in the same way. What interesting timing there, just weeks before all this went down...
One thing that really baffles my mind is this: If Manning had already leaked the documents months ago, what point was there in turning him over to the authorities? The government is proceeding as if the docs are about to go live tomorrow according to that other article, so what "theoretical good" could Lamo have possibly been hoping to accomplish here? The damage had been done as far as Lamo knew - turning in Manning could not possibly prevent transmissions that have already taken place!
The last article I referenced also glosses over Poulsen's potential influence and involvement in this situation.
However, we know from Poulsen's own admission that he became aware of the situation gradually and over time, well before it became an "exclusive article." Especially if Lamo was spending time in a psych ward just before all this happened, surely his good friend and long time associate was there for him, and detailed conversations about all of this were had. I have a hard time believing otherwise, at first glance, but alas this is just further speculation.
This article from yesterday regards the allegations from Wikileaks that the Washington Post had access to the Collateral Murder video for over a year but did not release it to the public: http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/wapo_denies_allegation_it_sat.php It has been updated with a response from the reporter supposedly in possession of the video. His response is at best a "non-denial denial" as the lone commenter to the article points out.
So where was I on the list of who benefits....oh yes:
Manning doesn't really seem to benefit here, unless he is some sort of operative sent in to bring down Wikileak's credibility. It seems odd to me that he has not been arrested or charged with any crime (they are simply "holding" him at present).
I'm not even sure if the US Army, government, etc. benefits here...it sounds like many of the wires regard international diplomacy and intelligence. Sounds like a lot of foreign countries and nationals might be pretty upset at what has been said about them in these classified wires. Although this advance notice of potential release is certainly giving them time to prepare, it certainly doesn't seem to be helping them regain possession of said documents. The alarmist tone of the State Dept. makes it sound like global instability could result on a level not previously seen or anticipated.
So that brings us to this question: Who regularly benefits in (and also has a proven track record of orchestrating, carrying out, and then covering up their involvement in) issues of global insecurity and instability, particularly when it comes to the US and both it's allies and enemies? Who has the impeccable track record of communications intercepts and information control and false flag event creation to manipulate middle east politics (which these wires directly relate to)? What other pressing issue is going on today that might so desperately requires a distraction that we may soon see the release of certain carefully chosen selections of these cables to generate political instability, turmoil, chaos, etc. Who could possibly have benefited from having created this situation and being in current control of it?
In any event, until we see more than just the one cable, it will be difficult to come to a more conclusive answer. But there are enough holes and indications of "missing scenes" here that I wanted to spend some time today doing this research.
I do think there is quite a bit more to this than all the surface level stories and quotes are suggesting. Some of my speculation may be wild, but is any of it really that unplausible?
Thoughts?
[edit: added quote tags to improve readability]
ADMIN NOTE: Added "headline sez" to subject for accuracy.
Does anyone else find the following strangely timed or possibly connected:
2 years ago there was a counterintelligence investigation into Wikileaks by the US Army, which concluded that the only effective way to slow down or stop the site would be to oust the identities of the contributors. The report also found that the site was a threat to not only the Army but to several countries, and would continue to be for some time. (Someone subsequently leaked the classified report and it's finding to Wikileaks in what I've often considered to be a rare case of literal grand irony :D) http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf and Sott.net
It has already been presented that surveillance and harassment operations recently intensified on the organization. Sott.net and http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2...parently-acting-on-plan-to-destroy-wikileaks/
There seems to have been quite a number of exchanges between Wikileaks and Wired, via Twitter in the last 48 hours. http://trueslant.com/colinhorgan/20...dley-manning-wired-adrian-lamo-kevin-poulsen/
Wikileaks seems to insinuate that Wired was somehow complicit to the whole operation "Poulsen&Lamo have a long history of acting as a journalistic duo.Just how complicit was Wired" and "Did Wired break journalism’s sacred oath? Lamo&Poulson call themselves journalists.Echoes of Olshansky shopping Diaz?"
That article also goes into detail about who Poulsen is (a famous ex-hacker), and contains another Tweet from Wikileaks saying that they are not aware of ever having received the 260,000 documents. Although, given the anonymity at even the deepest levels of wikileaks, where I'm reading that many members have never met to this day and are known to each other only by initials, I suppose it is very possible that they do have it, but that the person managing the Twitter feed (Assange?) is intentionally not able to confirm their existence or access them in order to maintain plausible deniability, perhaps for their ultimate disclosure. One can hope!
The New Yorker ran a very detailed 11 page piece on Assange. Interesting to again note that both publications are owned by Conde Nast (which is itself owned by the media conglomerate Advance Publications). http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=3
Now after reading the Wired article http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/ and many others circulating last few days, there are a few questions that come to mind...
Did Lamo ever actually see the cables? I do not see where it is ever mentioned that he was privy to the contents of the files he felt so morally obligated to prevent the leak of. From Wired, "Lamo says he felt he had no choice but to turn in Manning"
Lamos seems apologetic for his actions. He felt he had no choice in what he did, and has also said that he hopes one day those involved will forgive him. Does this sound like someone acting out of conscience, or someone who was strong handed into cooperation? Just a thought.
There is one mention I could find of Lamos being exposed to information, also from Wired: "The Bureau was particularly interested in information that Manning gave Lamo about an apparently-sensitive military cybersecurity matter, Lamo said."
Lamo then discounts this as actually uninteresting, and then references some broad opinions given to him by Manning about what might happen once the release took place as being the more interesting news to focus on.
One theory I have not discounted is the possibility that Manning is being used as a useful idiot, that this was a trap a year in the making, to ultimately discredit wikileaks. Or worse - that Manning could potentially be an "actor" of sorts in this whole charade. Mix in Lamo's participation, and the whole story just seems to become over-glossed with normality. Or worse - someone else entirely, even a foreign government, may actually be in possession or control (and has been the whole time) of these documents with far worse intentions than "freedom of information." More speculation on that later.
Or another possibility entirely: Could this entire event be an operation conceived of as a result of the above mentioned cointel inevstigation? The videos were leaked intentionally, and perhaps the cables don't even exist? Either way - the credibility of Wikileaks has been irreparably damaged, which was after all the stated conclusion of said investigation.
As always, it comes back to the age old question, "Who benefits?"
Clearly not Lamo - although perhaps he was told if he did not "play his role" there would be consequences
Manning who is currently being detained, but for some reason not charged doesn't seem to benefit much. It also makes no sense whatsoever that he would jeopardize the release of what he worked so hard to obtain and disseminate, not to mention throwing away his career and freedom as well - just to endlessly brag to a hacker he had never met about the coming total anarchy as a result of it all. Could any human being, let alone one who spends a year selectively choosing almost 300,000 classified documents to leak, ever be so naive as to think that suddenly, on the eve of transmission, that he should no longer keep this all a secret, and that he should attach his name to it and brag about what is about to happen to someone he has never met?
What if Manning is not the source? Of any of the leaks?
Wired and New Yorker and Conde Nast benefit - they have sold a lot of magazines
Poulsen (who has a pre-existing relationship with Lamos and is a senior editor at Wired) benefits by having the byline on the breaking story.
Kim Zetter (the other author of the Wired article) "is a journalist who has written extensively about issues related to Judaism and Israel for newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Jerusalem Post. Her studies of the Kabbalah began more than ten years ago when she lived and worked in Israel among the Hassidic community." from http://www.conari.com/authors/author_detail.jsp?supplier_id=97. She also writes extensively about internet security, hackers, and cryptography, including previous articles on wikileaks. Just an interesting sidenote.
Also noteworthy is that wikileaks points to the following article and suggests everyone study the quotes from Lamos carefully: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10265430.stm
"At the moment he gave me the information, it was basically a suicide pact."
"I didn't want any more FBI agents knocking at my door." [emphases mine]
Curiously, this article still does not shed any light on whether or not Lamos ever saw any of the files Manning claims to have sent to Wikileaks. In fact it would almost appear that only Manning has seen the files, but the few comments revealed by him have been cryptic at best, relating to never ending international diplomacy revelations of a climategate nature, but on a global level.
This article from yesterday http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/unfriendly_fire.php seeks to sort out wiki's allegations/implications against Lamo and Poulsen.
“As things often do with Adrian, things unfolded slowly and cryptically,” Poulsen says of coming to learn of the ex-hacker’s involvement in Manning’s arrest. “He starts by speaking in generalities and the like, and hinting at some intrigue that on its surface sounds absurd and unlikely. And then, of course, with Adrian it always turns out to be absolutely true.”
It almost appears as if Lamo was blabbering on about this for quite some time before deciding to turn in Manning. Do you think it was enough blabber that someone picked up on it? Back again to Lamo possibly being manipulated into doing all this (and with his criminal record, and current day successful career, this would not be difficult I imagine). Again, just more speculation here.
The article later quotes Poulsen:
"Poulsen is quick to dismiss the notion that publicizing Manning’s role was unethical:
"I mean, Manning is allegedly Julian’s leaker, not mine. That said, Wired isn’t in the business of working to expose other journalists sources, or WikiLeaks’s sources. We pursued this and we reported on this because the FBI and the Army already had the information. By the time we reported it—by the time we were doing serious reporting on it—he had already been arrested. So we do report on arrests, and we take particular interest when someone is arrested for leaking information"
Indeed, Poulsen told me that Lamo did not provide him with the chat logs around which the article is built until the day after Lamo learned that Manning was in custody."
But wait a second...Poulsen and Lamo are long term associates and friends, both personally and professionally. Poulsen already admitted that Lamo made several generalized statements about the affair increasing in intensity leading up to the handing over of Manning to authorities. Should we really believe at first glance that Poulsen had no role whatsoever in influencing Lamo to turn over Manning? I can understand why he would deny it now (which he hasn't - instead it is just cleverly repeated over and over that the authorities already had the info when the article ran, or that he didn't physically have a copy of the chat logs until afterwards), but it seems to me like a major piece of the timeline is missing. "Something happened" and probably a few somethings that led to this ultimate action of turning in Manning...And why the distinction between "the time they reported it " and "the time whey were doing serious reporting on it?" How many different periods of time were involved in this reporting anyhow?
That last quoted sentence about the chat logs also seems pretty telling to me that Lamos was not privy to any of the actual cables he was so concerned about, and that his concerns were indeed based on Manning's emotional releases in a conversation regarding the whole thing. How odd.
This article http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-...nning-allegedly-downloaded/?cid=hp:mainpromo1 shows just how worried and concern the US government is - they seem fairly convinced that the documents are about to be released.
"[An unnamed American diplomat] said Manning apparently had special access to cables prepared by diplomats and State Department officials throughout the Middle East regarding the workings of Arab governments and their leaders.
The cables, which date back over several years, went out over interagency computer networks available to the Army and contained information related to American diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, the diplomat said.
He added that the State Department and law-enforcement agencies are trying to determine whether, and how, to approach Wikileaks to urge the site not to publish the cables, given the damage they could do to diplomatic efforts involving the United States and its allies."
Wikileaks has said earlier today via Twitter that they have not yet been contacted in this regard.
Yet another interesting article from yesterday http://www.techeye.net/internet/wikileaks-cheesed-off-after-journalist-revealed-sources says that Poulsen reported just one month ago that "that Lamo was diagnosed with Asperger's, after being institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital."
This was also reported by Poulsen at Wired http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/lamo/ In that account you can see that he was forcibly hospitalized for many days in a psych institution after exhibiting odd behvaior to a police officer. He says that he worries that despite his diagnosis and subsequent medications prescribed as a result of this episode, that he still worries he would be again forcibly institutionalized in the same way. What interesting timing there, just weeks before all this went down...
One thing that really baffles my mind is this: If Manning had already leaked the documents months ago, what point was there in turning him over to the authorities? The government is proceeding as if the docs are about to go live tomorrow according to that other article, so what "theoretical good" could Lamo have possibly been hoping to accomplish here? The damage had been done as far as Lamo knew - turning in Manning could not possibly prevent transmissions that have already taken place!
The last article I referenced also glosses over Poulsen's potential influence and involvement in this situation.
Manning was however reported to authorities by Adrian Lamo, not Kevin Poulson. Kevin Poulson merely got the exclusive, due to his proximity to Lamo."
However, we know from Poulsen's own admission that he became aware of the situation gradually and over time, well before it became an "exclusive article." Especially if Lamo was spending time in a psych ward just before all this happened, surely his good friend and long time associate was there for him, and detailed conversations about all of this were had. I have a hard time believing otherwise, at first glance, but alas this is just further speculation.
This article from yesterday regards the allegations from Wikileaks that the Washington Post had access to the Collateral Murder video for over a year but did not release it to the public: http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/wapo_denies_allegation_it_sat.php It has been updated with a response from the reporter supposedly in possession of the video. His response is at best a "non-denial denial" as the lone commenter to the article points out.
So where was I on the list of who benefits....oh yes:
Manning doesn't really seem to benefit here, unless he is some sort of operative sent in to bring down Wikileak's credibility. It seems odd to me that he has not been arrested or charged with any crime (they are simply "holding" him at present).
I'm not even sure if the US Army, government, etc. benefits here...it sounds like many of the wires regard international diplomacy and intelligence. Sounds like a lot of foreign countries and nationals might be pretty upset at what has been said about them in these classified wires. Although this advance notice of potential release is certainly giving them time to prepare, it certainly doesn't seem to be helping them regain possession of said documents. The alarmist tone of the State Dept. makes it sound like global instability could result on a level not previously seen or anticipated.
So that brings us to this question: Who regularly benefits in (and also has a proven track record of orchestrating, carrying out, and then covering up their involvement in) issues of global insecurity and instability, particularly when it comes to the US and both it's allies and enemies? Who has the impeccable track record of communications intercepts and information control and false flag event creation to manipulate middle east politics (which these wires directly relate to)? What other pressing issue is going on today that might so desperately requires a distraction that we may soon see the release of certain carefully chosen selections of these cables to generate political instability, turmoil, chaos, etc. Who could possibly have benefited from having created this situation and being in current control of it?
In any event, until we see more than just the one cable, it will be difficult to come to a more conclusive answer. But there are enough holes and indications of "missing scenes" here that I wanted to spend some time today doing this research.
I do think there is quite a bit more to this than all the surface level stories and quotes are suggesting. Some of my speculation may be wild, but is any of it really that unplausible?
Thoughts?
[edit: added quote tags to improve readability]
ADMIN NOTE: Added "headline sez" to subject for accuracy.
Last edited by a moderator: