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Adrian Lamo Explains His Decision To Expose Bradley Manning
ilikenwf writes "Whether you agree with his rationale for doing so or not, Adrian Lamo has come forward to discuss his reasoning for exposing Bradley Manning. Manning, now in federal custody, leaked thousands of U.S. intelligence files and documents. Lamo's side of the story shows that he was concerned for Manning's mental health and stability, and for the lives Manning was risking by releasing classified material — Afghan informants, for instance. Either way, this goes to show that if you're going to release stolen/hacked documents, it's best you do it anonymously and don't brag about it."
but I think a few years in solitary isn't the best thing for one's mental health and stability.
Notice his bizarre reference to Babylon 5 that seems to be without irony. He's obviously a fan, but did he miss the message the show had about how a group of soldiers had to follow their conscience and expose war crimes and corruption from their government at home. These characters had to deal with propaganda from the government, professional snitches (Nightwatch) and threats of treason and imprisonment from their corrupt government. I guess Adrian Lamo was rooting for President Clarke all along.
Yeah, because when I'm "concerned" about somebody's mental stability, the FIRST thing I think of is sending them off to be held for 900+ days in solitary confinement and psychologically tortured.
This sort of post-hoc rationalization is actually *more* embarrassing than Lamo just coming and saying, "yeah, I did it for the fame. Suck my dick!"
It'd be nice to see Anonymous take on Lamo as a new "project." Someone ought to teach him that there's a price that comes with being a paid informant, even in a police state.
Either way, this goes to show that if you're going to release stolen/hacked documents, it's best you do it anonymously and don't brag about it."
Manning never "bragged" about anything. He was reaching out to a fellow hacker (who claimed to be a priest that Manning could confess to without consequence).
Manning was in a hostile environment with NO friends and with leaders who were corrupt and untrustworthy. His own father hated him for his homosexuality. He had nobody and was under an extreme amount of stress while trying to expose the corruption of his government. Almost ANYBODY would have made the mistake of trying to seek out a person that would be like-minded.
If this Adrian Lamo were honest and not just trying to save what is left of his "journalism" career, then he would be doing everything in his power to try and free Manning for standing by his principles.
Lamo was arrested in 2003 for breaking into the NY Times website along with Yahoo, Microsoft and other. Before that he broke into various corporate networks, Lexis-Nexis, etc. Facing a possible 15 year prison sentence he took a plea bargain with reduced it to 6 month to be spent under house arrest at his parent's home. How did he get such a sweet deal? Was part of the deal an agreement to become an FBI informant possibly? Because if the Anonymous arrests have proven one thing, when hackers are faced with serving serious jail time, they will rat their own mothers out to cut a deal.
One has to pick their path.
The things that really sticks out in this saga are 1) Manning had legal resources available to him to expose wrong doing in the classified world. He chose to ignore that route and used the media instead. 2) Lamo looked at the shear number of documents and had to make a choice to either do nothing with the possibility of many people being killed, or turn Manning in with the possibility of facing the death penalty. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
This saga has parallels in history. Think back to the first atomic bombs dropped on Japan. There were those in the program that had to come to grips with the fact that the work they did led to 250,000+ dead. They had basically two choices. Accept the notion that dropping those bombs led the the end of the war and ultimately reduce the total number of dead, or go crazy thinking otherwise, since we can never know for sure.
Right or wrong, Lamo chose his path and I will not fault him for it. Manning on the other hand choose poorly.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
In Lamo's place, I might've done the same.
In Manning's place, I might've also done the same.
I think the problem is the system, not the individuals who feel compelled to expose these things.
Because the "espionage" is actually evidence of crimes, and the authorities are criminals. I know it's hard to accept, but the people in charge are not always right and good.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Lamo's concerns regarding disclosure of Afgahan informants from Wikileaks are thus far unfounded, and his claim that "WikiLeaks has a history of hand-waving away the consequences of their disclosures" doesn't seem to jive with the facts in this case. Below is a quote from the relevant section of the Wikipedia article.
Informants named
Some, including Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai, raised concerns that the detailed logs had exposed the names of Afghan informants, thus endangering their lives. Partially in response to this criticism, Wikileaks announced that it has sought the help of the Pentagon in reviewing a further 15,000 documents before releasing them. The Pentagon said it had not been contacted by Wikileaks. However, blogger Glenn Greenwald presented evidence that the Pentagon had, in fact, been contacted, and that it had refused the request.
On 11 August, a spokesman for the Pentagon told the Washington Post that "We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents", although the spokesman asserted "there is in all likelihood a lag between exposure of these documents and jeopardy in the field." On 17 August, the Associated Press reported that "so far there is no evidence that any Afghans named in the leaked documents as defectors or informants from the Taliban insurgency have been harmed in retaliation."
In October, the Pentagon concluded that the leak "did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods", and that furthermore "there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak." Both Wikileaks and Greenwald pointed to this report as clear evidence that the danger caused by the leak had been vastly overstated.
Yes, I know I'm threadjacking an FP, but the issue that is often made of this so far non-issue I find annoying, particularly because it tends to overshadow the facts that were revealed.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
That's why I love my fellow citizens. They're more offended by talking about death and destruction than they are about paying for it.