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Via chat, Manning confessed to giving Wikileaks the Collateral Damage video and some 260,000 military cables — one the largest dumps of confidential data in U.S. military history. Lamo said turning Manning in was an act of conscience. Was it?
We interviewed Lamo at his home outside of Sacramento a few months ago when Wikileaks was in the news. Lamo said he turned Manning in because lives were at stake. With such a huge data dump, Lamo was sure that Manning didn’t scrub the names of Iraqi sympathizers and informants and that their lives were at risk.
Of course, Wikileaks released a second installment of those documents recently, and a barrage of stories about the elusive organization's founder, Julian Assange, followed.
But one angle I haven’t seen is a notion that Lamo floated to us a few months ago: Assange is running an espionage ring and should be treated like a spy and not heralded as a First Amendment hero.
A spy ring?
Daniela Bianchi plays Tatiana Romanova in "From Russia With Love." She was in a quick nude shot, which was considered risque at the time.
-coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com
Lamo says, look at the way Assange ran Pfc. Bradley Manning, who’s in the brig and facing two charges of misconduct. Just like during the Bond Cold War, Assange preyed on a confused young man who was looking for acceptance and love?
While folks have taken to comparing Manning to Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, Lamo’s account questions whether Manning understood the gravity — and potential consequences — of leaking the confidential military documents.
And rather than advising Manning, 22, of the seriousness of his actions, Lamo makes the case that Assange stoked Manning’s ego to get hold of the cables and had little regard for his future well-being. You can hear that interview on CyberFrequencies, a podcast I co-produce.
“Assange induced Manning into engaging in the conduct that he ultimately followed. … Manning had access that few if any other sources had. Special servers that allowed him to submit leaks that jumped to the head of the queue.”
Want proof that Manning was out of his league? Just look at the way Manning approached Lamo — a stranger — through instant messaging and spilled his guts. And also witness their random and somewhat bizarre IM exchanges, which Lamo released to Wired.
The New York Times also chimed in to say that Manning was rumored to be gay and in the don’t-ask-don’t-tell climate felt increasingly isolated.
"And now some of those friends say they wonder whether his desperation for acceptance — or delusions of grandeur — may have led him to disclose the largest trove of government secrets since the Pentagon Papers."
Lamo believes that Manning was a socially conscious person who objected to some of the military’s actions. But Manning was also fraying at the edges and Assange exploited this — and to what end? The 22-year-old Manning now faces up to 52 years in prison.
"I hope that Manning’s willing to give up the people who used him. Right now, they’re probably getting kids to put their lives on the line. I think if there’s anybody who ought to be in solitary confinement it ought to be Assange.”
Do you buy it? Is that the cost of exposing military actions in Iraq? What do you think?
© The Bay Citizen, 2012
Steve McGraw
Remember, there may be motives we're not aware of yet. For example, Lamo has been charged before with computer crimes, and as an American citizen (which Assange and others at Wikileaks are not) would be subject to criminal prosecution for not reporting a felony (Manning's possession and distribution of classified documents) or could have been charged for felony possession of the documents themselves. It could be he simple saw the writing on the wall and saved his own ass.
Look, he's a hacker. On top of that, he has been diagnosed with Asperger’s. Not at all uncommon for people in his profession (I used to work with several in Silicon Valley). But it also implies a possible lack of empathy, making it even easier to turn in Manning in order to avoid potential prosecution himself.
So we will not know Lamo's real reasons. He may not even know them himself.
Queena Kim
Good point! So... if you were in Lamo's shoes, would you have dropped the dime?
Petrus Laredes
The way I see it, it doesn't really matter whether Manning is guilty or not. He's going to be the fall guy either way.
That's the way it's always done. The brass never gets into trouble when attrocities occur. They always find some little private who just happened to be inconveniently close enough to what was going on, for it to appear vaguely credible that said private was somehow responsible, and then said private gets it.
Look at Lynndie England, in Abu Ghraib. The same thing happened there. Obviously privates are not fundamentally responsible for these sorts of things; it also goes much further up the chain. Privates are viewed as being expendable, however, in every sense of the word. Manning's only crime here is most likely his rank.
Queena Kim
Interesting, so you think there were people above Manning who were involved in the leak?
Vito Tums
This reminds me of the film "the Insider". There is a scene in which Jeffrey Wigand tells Lowell Bergman that he was lead into the being a whistleblower. Question. Does the scene represent the typical whistleblower scenario? In the case of Daniel Ellsberg, it seems that his wife may have been encouraging him and it seems that all whistleblowers need encouragement to go against the status quo.
It is interesting to me that Lamo seems to play down Assange's email in our interview with him and in your interview he goes much further into what was communicated by Assange. Why would Assange write an email such as this, that poses such a serious threat to his creditability and person.
Here's a link to the complete email.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-to-lamo/
Clearly, the best way for Assange's enemies to defeat him. Is for them to destroy his creditability by use of the media. This seems to be occurring currently. The real question in my mind. Is are there "too many secrets" as the Cosmo character states, in the 1995 film "Sneakers". Is an organization like Wikileaks needed do to the fact that transparency is only a rally cry for politicians and media spin doctors? Is the regular press too weak to do the kind to work that exposed the government's misconduct, as they did in exposés like the Pentagon Papers and Watergate.
Clearly Ellsberg was able to effect change but only because of his status was he able to escape imprisonment. If he was Private Ellsberg I doubt he would have had the creditability to weather the storm. So why would Assange risk a this kind to blunder that would damage his creditability. I believe there is much more to the story.
Vito Tums
Queena Kim
Hey - I'd love to see your interview, can you post a link?
I agree there's more to the story - mostly because there's a lot of egos -- Lamo, Assange, government officials etc... -- and motives involved. Since we're throwing around movie analogies here it's like Rashomon
To me, the question isn't whether Private Ellsberg would have escaped imprisonment. The question is whether Private Ellsberg would have spilled his guts to some random guy he's never met? In other words, did Private Manning understand the gravity of his data dump to Assange?
And did Assange have an ethical responsibility to make sure he did?
I dunno the answers to the last one but thought it was interesting to throw it out there.
Vito Tums
The question is whether Private Ellsberg would have spilled his guts to some random guy he's never met?
I think that Dr Ellsberg is much to sophisticated a man to do such a thing. Instead he got the documents put into the congressional record. I don't believe that this method could have worked for Manning. For one thing Manning wasn't plugged in to the Washington intelligence community in the same way as Dr Ellsberg.
In other words, did Private Manning understand the gravity of his data dump to Assange?
I am sure that Manning understood the gravity of his actions. He is after all an intelligence analyst. It would be naive to think that Manning didn't understand what the consequences of his actions could lead too. The fact is he didn't believe that Lamo would betray him. In fact I believe that he had respect for Lamo. So to say the Lamo was some random person would be absurd.
And did Assange have an ethical responsibility to make sure he did?
I believe that all journalist have an ethical responsibility to protect their sources. Clearly Assange couldn't do this after Lamo gave Manning up to the government.
Ego is not what the story is about in my opinion, The real story is about the questions that you didn't broach. Like, are there to many government secrets? Is the press to impotent to expose the government's misconduct. Is Wikileaks a necessary evil to counter the the increasing amount of government coverups that use the "classified top secret status" to hide immoral behavior? Clearly some of the information leaked by Manning doesn't fall into this category but I believe the information does show a pattern of ethical misconduct at many levels. Torture and disregard for human life just to name a few.
Here's the link to the interview.
http://vimeo.com/14820971