Bradley Manning's (Wikileaks) accusers have a dodgy past...

[grahamhgreen]

"The story of Bradley Manning's arrest has had one crucial detail missing for the last six months. The chat logs allegedly between Adrian Lamo and Bradley Manning have had 75% of their alleged content redacted by the journalists allowed access to them, and the details of the initial contact between Manning and Lamo have never been understood. While the NY Times is content to run a front page article detailing testimony from a mentally unstable ex-felon who is suddenly remembering details that directly contradict what he stated last fall, other journalists have dug much deeper.

Glenn Greenwald continues to call for an end to the chat logs suppression by Wired, as he also continues to pursue the relationships between Wired, the FBI, and Adrian Lamo (the sole provider of evidence against Bradley Manning). A few things we now know, courtesy of Greenwald and the sources he references, about Lamo, his friend Kevin Poulsen who published the chat logs story, and their accomplice Mark Rasch who put Lamo in touch with federal law authorities in order to inform on Manning:

* Lamo and Poulsen are both convicted felons who were prosecuted by the FBI and have maintained contact with at least one former adversary."


http://wlcentral.org/node/724

[maryf]

1. K&Rnt

[MH1]

2. So he didn't do it? Therefore, not a hero, just another victim of injustice?

[no limit]

5. He certainly hasn't been found guilty

and judging by how they are treating him they are trying to set him up to make up testimony against Assange.

[MH1]

6. but if he wasn't involved, then he can't give any useful testimony

so why would they be treating him like this? Why even hold him at all?

[no limit]

8. You are saying our government never charges innocent people with crimes they didn't do?

Or that the government never extracts false testimony from those same people?

[MH1]

12. so you are saying they picked this innocent guy to torture so that he'll make shit up

about Assange?

just trying to be clear if that's what you're saying.

If so, he's a victim rather than a hero.

I'm not saying it couldn't happen but I really don't see it in this case. And anyway his 'supporters' should make up their minds whether he's a 'hero' (did it and they support that) or victim (didn't do it and is getting royally f*cked over for no good reason). It's one or the other, not both.

[grahamhgreen]

13. Which is exactly why he should be out on bail and talking to the press. Innocent until

proven guilty.

[davidinalameda]

14. I don't think you can get bail in the military

this isn't a civilian crime

[treestar]

18. Plus there is a system of rules of laws, and that system is being applied

There's no point in crying about it, even if one supports what Brad did.

[grahamhgreen]

19. Rule is no cruel or unusual punishment, which is what he's being subject too, PRIOR to conviction.

[treestar]

21. Then he can challenge it in court

The reason he does not may be that the case law does not support it. Most likely that has been challenged before. The law is not just what we want it to be based on our response to media coverage.

[grahamhgreen]

26. This is getting very Kafkaesque - He can't challenge it because he's in solitary!!!

The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime never revealed either to him or the reader.

I understand what you are saying, but please don't support a police state.

[treestar]

16. Which would be silly, since someone did it and that someone could

be found.

Notice if he does turn on Julian the leaker, suddenly his credibility, so strong now, will go boom!

[no limit]

24. The point again treestar is that he has not been found guilty

and if he turns against Assange it will be because of the pressure that our government has put on him. He would be lying, but I could not blame him for it. Especially after what he has been subject to.

[no limit]

25. No, I am saying he is innocent until proven guilty

we don't know one way or another if he is the leaker.

[treestar]

17. It lets them go when they are acquitted

Are you claiming they have a zero track record and that no one is ever guilty of any crime?

[no limit]

23. No, that is not what I am claiming at all. All I said is that it happens

and it's not all that rare.

[xchrom]

3. recommend

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. The plot sickens. K and R

[Azathoth]

7. Ah, now that we've assassinated the character of Assange's accusers, we turn to Manning's n/t

[ret5hd]

9. I think Assange's accusers assassinated their own character.

Shouldn't brag about sexual exploits if you later want to cry about it.

[Smarmie Doofus]

10. Poulsen's wikipedia bio:

>>>>Biography

Before segueing into journalism, he had a controversial career in the 1980s as a hacker whose handle was Dark Dante. He worked for SRI International by day, and hacked at night. During this time, Poulsen taught himself lock picking, and engaged in a brash spree of high-tech stunts that would ultimately make him one of America's best-known cyber-criminals. Among other things, Poulsen reactivated old Yellow Page escort telephone numbers for an acquaintance that then ran a virtual escort agency.
His best-appreciated hack was a takeover of all of the telephone lines for Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, guaranteeing that he would be the 102nd caller and win the prize of a Porsche 944 S2.<2><3>
When the FBI started pursuing Poulsen, he went underground as a fugitive. When he was featured on NBC's Unsolved Mysteries, the show's 1-800 telephone lines mysteriously crashed.<2><4> He was finally arrested in April 1991. In June 1994, Poulsen pleaded guilty to seven counts of mail, wire and computer fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to 51 months in prison and ordered to pay $56,000 in restitution. At the time, it was the longest sentence ever given for cracking. He also pleaded guilty to breaking into computers and obtaining information on undercover businesses run by the FBI.
Poulsen enjoyed brief celebrity in the tech world upon his release from federal prison, and was the subject of the book Watchman: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Serial Hacker Kevin Poulsen, a work which Poulsen himself has decried.
Poulsen has reinvented himself as a journalist since his release from prison, and sought to distance himself from his criminal past. Poulsen served in a number of journalistic capacities at California-based security research firm SecurityFocus, where he began writing security and hacking news in early 2000. Despite a late arrival to a market saturated with technology media, SecurityFocus News became a well-known name in the tech news world during Poulsen's tenure with the company and was acquired by Symantec. His original investigative reporting was frequently picked up by the mainstream press. Poulsen left SecurityFocus in 2005 to freelance and pursue independent writing projects. He became a senior editor for Wired News in June 2005, which hosts his recent (as of 2006) blog, 27BStroke6, which has since been renamed Threat Level.>>>>>>>



This sounds too crazy to be completely true.


In any case.... assuming that it's *essentially* true... how pivotal is Poulsen to the gov't's case against Manning?

[stray cat]

11. Has he ever denied it?

[treestar]

15. What did you think when Christine O'Donnell did the same thing?

Accused the accusers of being "bad people" and somehow that makes her innocent?

[grahamhgreen]

20. The credibility of witnesses is a key legal process.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Manning's persecuters, the DOD, has an even dodgier past..and present.