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Cables on Church Sex Scandal among those Sent to Wikileaks

Threat Level posted a quarter of the chat logs between alleged Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning and hacker Adrian Lamo (it didn’t post those with particularly personal or potentially dangerous national security information).

While the logs don’t provide many details about what was in the 260,000 State Department cables that has the government so spooked, they do reveal that some of the cables pertain to the Vatican’s position on the Church’s sex scandals.

(1:45:16 PM) Manning: hundreds of them
(1:45:40 PM) Lamo: like what? I’m genuinely curious about details.
(1:46:01 PM) Manning: i dont know… theres so many… i dont have the original material anymore
(1:46:18 PM) Manning: uhmm… the Holy See and its position on the Vatican sex scandals
(1:46:26 PM) Lamo: play it by ear
(1:46:29 PM) Manning: the broiling one in Germany

Sort of makes you wonder why the State Department is discussing what the Vatican thinks about its pedophile priests, doesn’t it? Unless of course our government is tapping the Pope to keep tracks on the Church’s pedophiles…

Alleged Wikileaks Leaker Arrested

Wired reports that authorities have arrested a military intelligence analyst who had boasted that he leaked two videos, an intelligence report on Wikileaks, and hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables to Wikileaks.

Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.

SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.

Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.

He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”

“Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning wrote.

Wikileaks, however, says it can’t confirm that Manning was the guy who leaked to them, and says they don’t think they have the 260,000 cables.

We never collect personal information on our sources, so we are are unable as yet to confirm the Manning story.

Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect.

Which ought to make things interesting. The military is likely to be most interested in learning how the encryption on the video(s) was broken–and whether Wikileaks allegedly got that from Manning or not. That, plus I would imagine they’re interested in breaking Wikileaks’ own code to prevent any further leaking. But if Manning’s telling stories about what he leaked to Wikileaks, it might mean he’s not the guy–or the only guy–who leaked this.

The Wikileaks Medic’s Soldier’s Apology

Two of the guys in the Company depicted in the Wikileaks video–including the medic guy who pulled the girl from the van–recently wrote a letter apologizing for their role in the events depicted in the video. Here’s how it starts:

Peace be with you.

To all of those who were injured or lost loved ones during the July 2007 Baghdad shootings depicted in the “Collateral Murder” Wikileaks video:

We write to you, your family, and your community with awareness that our words and actions can never restore your losses.

We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Josh Stieber was in the same company but was not there that day, though he contributed to the your pain, and the pain of your community on many other occasions.

There is no bringing back all that was lost. What we seek is to learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to tell others of our experiences and how the people of the United States need to realize we have done and are doing to you and the people of your country. We humbly ask you what we can do to begin to repair the damage we caused.

Danger Room also has a long interview with the medic guy who pulled the girl, Ethan McCord, who first saw the video again after dropping his own kids off to school.

DR: The first thing you saw was the little girl in the van. She had a stomach wound?

EM: She had a stomach wound and she had glass in her eyes and in her hair. She was crying. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I went to the van immediately, because I could hear her crying. It wasn’t like a cry of pain really. It was more of a child who was frightened out of her mind. And the next thing I saw was the boy. … He was kind of sitting on the floorboard of the van, but with his head laying on the bench seat in the front. And then the father, who I’m assuming was the father, in the driver’s seat slumped over on his side. Just from looking into the van, and the amount of blood that was on the boy and the father, I immediately figured they were dead.

So the first thing I did was grab the girl. I grabbed the medic and we went into the back. There’s houses behind where the van was. We took her in there and we’re checking to see if there were any other wounds. You can hear the medic saying on the video, “There’s nothing I can do here, she needs to be evac’d.” He runs the girl to the Bradley. I went back outside to the van, and that’s when the boy took, like, a labored, breath … That’s when I started screaming, “The boy’s alive! The boy’s alive!” And I picked him up and started running with him over to the Bradley.  He opened his eyes when I was carrying him. I just kept telling him, “Don’t die; don’t die.” He looked at me, then his eyes rolled back into this head.

Then I got yelled at by my platoon leader that I needed to stop trying to save these mf’n kids and go pull security. … I was told to go pull security on a rooftop. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. We were probably there on the roof for another four to five hours.

Both the letter and the interview are worth reading in full.

Update: Sorry for the error in suggesting McCord was a medic. Some of the early commentary on it–and someone someone said to me subsequently–had made me believe he was.

Is DOD “Losing” Videos of Its Special Ops Missions?

I want to look at two data points about the Wikileaks video.

First, note what General Barry McCaffrey has to say about the mission depicted in the Wikileaks video (around 1:25):

Well, it’s not clear to me it was a mistake, Contessa, I mean if there were armed people on the ground, the fact that they appeared relaxed is good. It means you caught them by surprise. That apparently was a Special Operations mission. Everything about their raids is classified. [my emphasis]

McCaffrey’s a pretty (ahem) straight shooter. And he seems to suggest here that there was nothing out of the ordinary about this mission–for a Special Ops mission.

Which is why I find it so interesting that DOD now says it can’t find its own copy of the video.

The U.S. military said Tuesday it can’t find its copy of a video that shows two employees of the Reuters news agency being killed by Army helicopters in 2007, after a leaked version circulated the Internet and renewed questions about the attack.

Capt. Jack Henzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said that forces in Iraq have not been able to locate the video within its files.

We’re attempting to retrieve the video at this time,” Henzlik said.

Now, when I first read this, I grumbled, “ah jeebus, I’m going to have to start another catalog of missing evidence again.” But I’m not sure that’s what this says. Henzlik seems to suggest that CentCom did have a video in its files, but “forces in Iraq” can’t find it anymore.

But if this is a JSOC mission, would you be looking in USSOCOM, and not CentCom?

And is this so sensitive because this is precisely how Special Ops are supposed to behave?

“Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”

Warning: Very disturbing video.

Wikileaks has now posted the video that–they have suggested–is one of the reasons the US government has been surveilling them. Here’s part of Wikileaks’ description:

The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

While there were armed men among those shot at, they were not engaging the Americans at all. At the moment the Americans started shooting, a number of the targeted men had their back to the helicopter flying overhead. And after they wound the Iraqi photo-journalist, they fly around a while waiting for an excuse to re-engage; they seem to admit he was unarmed when they hit him, and therefore can’t shoot further unless he shows a weapon.

When ground troops arrive at the site and discover two children among the wounded, they blame the Iraqis for the kids’ injuries (this is after 15:30 on the video).

“Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”

“That’s right.”

Of course, this wasn’t a battle at all. It was unprovoked killing, including the killing of two journalists.

The release of this video, of course, comes on the same day that the NYT details how Special Forces killed three women in Afghanistan and then tried to cover up their actions.

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the nature of their deaths.

A NATO official also said Sunday that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. On Monday, however, a senior NATO official denied that any tampering had occurred.

I expect we’ll be hearing a lot more about civilian killings in the days ahead.

The Cass Sunstein Campaign against Open Source Leaks

Cass Sunstein doesn’t really have all that much to do with the content of this post. I named it after him as an excuse to recommend that you read Glenn Greenwald’s take-down of Sunstein as a potential SCOTUS appointee, and particularly to remind you of Sunstein’s paper advocating extensive propaganda to knock down the theories of those Sunstein deems to have committed “cognitive blunders.” There is no evidence Sunstein’s theories of governmental information control have to do with the apparent increasing persecution of open source leak outlets, but it does seem to stem from the same kind of authoritarian instinct.

WikiLeaks alleges intelligence surveillance of its actions

As a number of you have emailed, Wikileaks has posted a press release and a number of tweets alleging that it was being surveilled and harassed in Iceland.

I, and others were in Iceland to advise Icelandic parliamentarians on the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a new package of laws designed to protect investigative journalists and internet services from spying and censorship. As such, the spying has an extra poignancy.

The possible triggers:

  • our ongoing work on a classified film revealing civilian casualties occurring under the command of the U.S, general, David Petraeus.
  • our release of a classified 32 page US intelligence report on how to fatally marginalize WikiLeaks (expose our sources, destroy our reputation for integrity, hack us).
  • our release of a classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik reporting on contact between the U.S. and the U.K. over billions of euros in claimed loan guarantees.
  • pending releases related to the collapse of the Icelandic banks and Icelandic “oligarchs”.

We have discovered half a dozen attempts at covert surveillance in Reykjavik both by native English speakers and Icelanders. On the occasions where these individuals were approached, they ran away. One had marked police equipment and the license plates for another suspicious vehicle track back to the Icelandic private VIP bodyguard firm Terr. What does that mean? We don’t know. But as you will see, other events are clear.

U.S. sources told Icelandic state media’s deputy head of news, that the State Department was aggressively investigating a leak from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador’s residence, late last year and it is known I had contact with Embassy staff, after.

On Thursday March 18, 2010, I took the 2.15 PM flight out of Reykjavik to Copenhagen–on the way to speak at the SKUP investigative journalism conference in Norway. After receiving a tip, we obtained airline records for the flight concerned. Two individuals, recorded as brandishing diplomatic credentials checked in for my flight at 12:03 and 12:06 under the name of “US State Department”. The two are not recorded as having any luggage.

Iceland doesn’t have a separate security service. It folds its intelligence function into its police forces, leading to an uneasy overlap of policing and intelligence functions and values.

On Monday 22, March, at approximately 8.30pm, a WikiLeaks volunteer, a minor, was detained by Icelandic police on a wholly insignificant matter. Police then took the opportunity to hold the youth over night, without charge–a highly unusual act in Iceland. The next day, during the course of interrogation, the volunteer was shown covert photos of me outside the Reykjavik restaurant “Icelandic Fish & Chips”, where a WikiLeaks production meeting took place on Wednesday March 17–the day before individuals operating under the name of the U.S. State Department boarded my flight to Copenhagen.

Our production meeting used a discreet, closed, backroom, because we were working on the analysis of a classified U.S. military video showing civilian kills by U.S. pilots. During the interrogation, a specific reference was made by police to the video—which could not have been understood from that day’s exterior surveillance alone. Another specific reference was made to “important”, but unnamed Icelandic figures. References were also made to the names of two senior journalists at the production meeting.

As they note in the press release above, this comes shortly after Wikileaks posted an Army Counterintelligence paper on Wikileaks itself, written in 2008, and advocating the kind of misinformation that Sunstein himself proposed.

PayPal freezes Cryptome’s account, perhaps in retaliation

Then there’s something that happened a few more weeks ago, when PayPal froze Cryptome’s PayPal account. (Zero Hedge connected these two events here.)

6 March 2010

PayPal has confiscated donations made to Cryptome since February 24, 2010. The donations have have been refunded by Cryptome rather than leave them in the untrustworthy control of PayPal for purposes contrary to those of the donors. Read more