Greenwald : Wired's refusal to release or comment on the Manning chat log

[kgnu_fan]

It is very helpful to understand the bigger picture.... Recommend!

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html

<snip>

One can see how significant Wired's concealment of this evidence is by simply looking at (1) the numerous claims Lamo has made about what Manning told him in these chats that are not found anywhere in Wired's excerpts, and (2) the multiple contradictions about the key events which Lamo has spouted.

[Kaleko]

1. Recommended, though unreccers seem to be out in force today.

Lol.

[kgnu_fan]

7. I know, they become more and more desperate over Wikileaks

[Poll_Blind]

2. Since writing that piece it appears Wired has folded like a cheap deck chair, with BOTH their...

...editor in chief Evan Hansen and Lamo's confidant at Wired, Kevin Poulsen both distancing themselves from Lamo's assertions and rightfully throwing him under the bus for his fabrications.

The story is so damned breaking, right now it's going back and forth between the parties at Wired & Greenwald on Twitter!

Hansen clearly does not want Wired's reputation damaged any more. Poulsen is clearly still pissed at Greenwald but as of this moment, all fucking eyes are turned onto Lamo who both sides of this story are now pointing fingers at.

And both sides are linking and Tweeting THIS BoingBoing story in which Wired basically answered Greenwald's question- but to BoingBoing- and so saved some face.

There is a big chunk of the readership who is now aware that Poulsen and Lamo both have very close ties to the government and this shoots up Wired's journalistic integrity badly. Some of their readership have also noticed the strange piece that Poulsen had written about Lamo checking himself into the hospital could have been a poorly-constructed cover story (which few were interested in, in the first place) to justify time spent with Lamo who was, at that time, actively communicating with Manning with the full knowledge of the U.S. government. The event itself, Lamo being checked into a mental institution just 3 weeks before all this went down, is not in question but Poulsen's coverage of such a non-event (in regards to Wired) has raised many questions.

Wired is very much interested in their readers, especially their paper subscribers, not looking at this and a few other aspects of Poulsen's relationship with Lamo any more closely than they have to and so the natural result- Sacrifice Lamo.

What Lamo does at this point is absolutely unpredictable. He is ostracized from the hacker community and the government's case against Assange is now more doubtful than ever (it was based on bullshit anyway). Project Vigilant, which is the bogus organization he allegedly "turned to for assistance" is also falling apart with Cryptome just ripping it to shreds and this latest revelation about Lamo's authenticity doesn't do it any favors.

What does Lamo do? Does he turn around to Greenwald and "tell all" about his relationship with Poulsen and their relationship with the government? It appears he's toxic to both sides of the equation at this point! But Lamo is driven by getting himself publicity and so whatever he does, for better or for worse, will be designed to get as much attention as possible.

PB

[sabrina 1]

3. The sacrificial Lamo!

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Thanks for your post. So, the Manning/Lamo story was a fabrication from the beginning. I would like to hear Manning's side of the story. How he came to confide in Lamo, IF he did. The whole story is now in question.

Airc, supposedly Manning decided out of the blue to communicate with Lamo and 'confess' to having leaked docs to Wikileaks.

Greenwald has been superb on this story. Definitely some of the best journalism on the Manning story so far. Real investigative journalism while the MSM asked no questions, just posted the government's and Lamo's (never a reliable source from the start) versions of what happened.

[Poll_Blind]

8. You're naughty, LOL! Well, aside from the peril that Assange is in...

...we should also recall that Lamo's mental state is in question and that his own ego may have gotten him into a very bad place where there are few, if any, palatable "outs".

Two things Lamo did, by his own hand, which have sealed his fate (in a manner of speaking): He "curiously" came in contact with Manning, gained his confidence in a number of ways (including but not limited to claiming to be both a priest and a reporter and allegedly stating that anything Manning confessed to him would be in the strictest confidence) AND then apparently going off after the fact and greatly embellishing the alleged transcripts far beyond what they actually contained.

His level of maturity, mental state and all other evaluations of him as a person should take into account that these are things he did by his own hand- unless there are revelations yet to be seen.

While the facts of the matter are still murky at best, I would not agree that the entire story was a fabrication from the beginning. That's what my gut tells me. What my gut tells me is that there are some particles of truth to the story which are suspended in a much larger volume of embelishments, half-truths, convenient stretches of the truth and outright bald-faced lies. Not just from Lamo but probably from Poulsen as well because they, ahem what's a good metaphor, might both be calling the same 202 area code to make "reports".

There are so many questions about this whole scene it's not even funny. Whether Wired have sufficiently fed The Journalistic Beast They Call Greenwald is still too early to tell. At this point it would not take much more hammering to probably get Poulsen fired. Greenwald, as you know, documents the living shit out of everything he writes and, so far, the ad-hominems coming out of Wired have been nothing but a 50-gallon drum of weaksauce. So we'll see. Wired's Editor in Chief knows better than to sacrifice the integrity of his magazine over a potential scam run by one of it's writers and I have a suspect all of this is not entirely over.

PB

[sabrina 1]

14. I would not want to have Greenwald after me if I was playing

games with the facts, that's for sure

Greenwald, as you know, documents the living shit out of everything he writes Yes, I've always been in awe of his ability to do that ~

What is not clear though, and I don't know if Greenwald has addressed, is how Lamo and Manning came to know each other (online I mean).

It could hardly have been Lamo contacting Manning IF the government didn't know who had leaked the documents. And why would Manning seek out Lamo?

It may be that the government had a few suspects and Manning was among them, then had Lamo make contact with them. I'd like to know if there were other suspects and if they did contact them.

A lot of questions unanswered. Let's see if the lamestream media picks up on this story or if they just continue to deliver the government's version of the facts.

I do think Assange is pretty safe from ever being indicted here or extradited. At least from what we know right now.

[kgnu_fan]

5. Judith Miller and New York Times = Lamo + Paulson and Wired

[hlthe2b]

4. I have no doubt that Asssange is and will be represented...

by the best legal minds available. Not simply because he has resources, but because of the very large implications of such a prosecution, if it comes. My question, though, is with respect to Manning's legal representation (to supplement whomever the military has provided). It seems to me, he really needs both expertise and a fairly significant "name" in constitutional law. Has such an individual/individuals stepped forward for what will undoubtedly be a high profile, yet pro bono type of case?

[kgnu_fan]

6. I smell whole set up operation going wrong...

[EFerrari]

9. Lamo may not be the best person to have chosen for something like this

or, alternately, the best person to have relied on if he presented himself to poulsen. He has problems and any reporter worth his salt would have figured that out before running the story in the first place.

[Poll_Blind]

10. +1

I have every reason to believe that Lamo's "stability" is in question. As I wrote upthread, there appear to be a few things which clearly were done by "his own hand", presumably to feed an ego. But possibly an ego which was not considerate of the consequences of his actions and which have effectively led to him being ostracized in every community he seems to have regularly participated in.

However, Poulsen's or the government's (or others') influence on his actions cannot be entirely negated.

...any reporter worth his salt would have figured that out before running the story in the first place.

Indeed. And, IMO, given the turn of developments in the last 12 hours or so (maybe 24), Hansen and Poulsen are hoping the spotlight shines entirely on the apparently almost wholly-unreliable narrative told by Lamo instead of being split between Lamo and Poulsen's wanting journalistic skills.

PB

[EFerrari]

11. I read somewhere that he has Asperger's but haven't confirmed it.

However, if that is true, then social consequences that are obvious to other people are not immediately obvious to him.

[Poll_Blind]

13. This is what Lamo claims. But I believe this diagnosis only came about after he...

...had been checked into a hospital/mental institution after losing his medication, presumably for some other issues he was dealing with.

That part of the story is fuzzy, at least to me. If he genuinely has Asperger then it complicates an already very, very complicated situation just like Manning's alleged homosexuality does.

This case has everything but breastfeeding and pitbulls.

PB

[kgnu_fan]

22. Lamo can be easily manupilated and discarded when he becomes useless...

[DeSwiss]

12. K&R

As someone once said: "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Thus, as WIRED is dependent upon adverti$ing revenue$ in order to survive, they can be easily manipulated and/or man-handled into saying or doing just about anything that TPTB want them to do or say. Just as they've leveraged MasterCard, PayPal and anyone else in the private sector to put on a full court press against Wikileaks. And in their utter stupidity they have failed to realize that the Wikileaks problem isn't going to be solved with force (which is basically all they know), because Wikileaks is not now nor will they ever play by their rules. Because if it's one thing that TPTB has shown everyone by now, is that there are no rules. At least for them.

- So I'm not surprised at any of this. Not in the least......

The information racketeers

It is the job of our combined institutions to manage cultural information so as to deny the harmful aspects of the rackets they protect through legislation and promote through institutional research. That's why research shows that cell phone microwaves cause long term memory loss in rats, but do not harm people. Evidently, we are of different, more bullet proof mammalian material.

Our hyper capitalist system, through command of our research, media and political institutions, expands upon and disseminates only that information which generates money and transactions. It avoids, neglects or spins the hell out of information that does not. And if none of those work, the info is exiled to some corner of cyberspace such as Daily Kos, where it cannot change the status quo, yet can be ballyhooed as proof of our national freedom of expression. Here come the rotten eggs from the Internet liberals.

Cyberspace by nature feels very big from the inside, and its affinity groups, seeing themselves in aggregate and in mutual self reference, imagine their role bigger and more effective than it is. From within the highly directed, technologically administrated, marketed-to and propagandized rat cage called America, this is all but impossible to comprehend. Especially when corporate owned media tells us it is.

Take the world recent shaking WikiLeak's "revelations" of Washington's petty misery and drivel, which are scarcely revelations, just more extensive details about what we all already knew. Come on now, is it a revelation that Karzai and his entire government is a nest of fraudulent double-crossing thieves? Or that the US is duplicitous? Or that Angela Merkel is dull? The main revelation in the WikiLeaks affair was the U.S. government's response -- which was to bring US freedom of speech policy firmly in line with China's. Millions of us in cyber ghettoes saw it coming, but our alarm warnings were shouted inside a cyberspace vacuum bell jar. Bear in mind that I am writing this from outside the US borders and media environment, where people watch the WikiLeaks story unfold more in amusement than anything else.

The WikiLeaks affair is surely seismic to those whose asses ride on the elite diplomatic intrigues. But in the big picture it will not change the way the top lizards in global politics, money and war have done business since the feudal age -- which is to say with arrogant disregard for the rest of us. Theirs is an ancient system of human dominance that only shifts names and methodologies over the centuries. Two years from now, little will have changed in the old, old story of the powerful few over the powerless many. In this overarching drama, Obama, Hillary and Julian Assange are passing players. Watching the sweaty, fetid machinations of our overlords with such passionate involvement only keeps us from seeing the big picture -- that they are the players and we are the pawns.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/12/america-y-ur-peeps-b-so-dum.html">~Joe Bageant, "America Y UR Peeps B So Dum?"

[snagglepuss]

15. k & r nt

[slipslidingaway]

16. knr .... snip ....

"...I could spend the rest of the day -- literally -- documenting bizarre facts in this story and contradictory assertions from Lamo about the most serious of matters. Just by herself, Marcy Wheeler -- who has repeatedly proven herself to be one of the most thorough forensic examiners of raw data in the country -- has raised all kinds of serious questions about when Lamo really began working with federal authorities, unexplained discrepancies in the Wired chat logs, and whether Lamo received actual classified information from Manning beyond the chats. Beyond that, FDL's large readership has spent the last week compiling virtually every interview, press account and document involving Lamo and has pointed to multiple contradictions and unanswered questions that go to the heart of how Lamo claims to have become an informant who turned in Manning, including strange claims like this from Lamo, in a June 6 interview on CBC Radio:

..........

"...Yet despite how alarmed they were by how sensitive this information was -- and despite the Obama DOJ's well-documented harsh crackdown on all leaks -- the FBI and Army Intelligence officials simply let Lamo keep copies of the chat logs and freely hand them out to Wired's Kevin Poulsen in order for Poulsen to publish whatever he wanted without input or influence from those agents? Very little about what Lamo, Poulsen and Wired claim here makes sense. The chat logs -- or at least Wired's confirmation about what is in them -- is the only thing that could clear any of this up..."

[sabrina 1]

19. Well, now that we know, assuming they're telling the truth,

that everything that transpired between Lamo and Manning is what we have already seen, it seems Lamo has been lying to the press. Too bad the MSM didn't question him the way Greenwald and Marcy Wheeler have.

The special treatment Manning supposedly got from Wikileaks appears to be a fabrication by Lamo. Looks like the U.S. DOJ's Holder will have to start all over again searching for a crime to charge Assange with.

This one appears to have fizzled out ~ but then we shouldn't be searching for crimes to match people we don't like to. That's not how it is supposed to work. All they've done is made themselves look desperate and foolish and inept.

[slipslidingaway]

20. Holder could check on Bush admin crimes if he wanted ...

"...This one appears to have fizzled out ~ but then we shouldn't be searching for crimes to match people we don't like to. That's not how it is supposed to work. All they've done is made themselves look desperate and foolish and inept."

:thumbsup:

[sabrina 1]

21. Well, we can't do that! Those are real crimes

We could put the same amount of effort into catching Osama Bin Laden also, but hey, that too is a real crime.

The DOJ's function appears to be for political purposes only. Remember how Bush used it?

Looks like nothing's changed.

[kgnu_fan]

23. sad and depressing...

[xchrom]

17. Recommend

[slipslidingaway]

18. kick nt