Scumbag.

It’s pretty damning of Wired’s Hansen and Poulsen, and their selective editing of the chat logs under false pretenses. Lamo gets exposed (again) for being the reprehensible liar he most certainly is.

Question: if Lamo represented himself as both a journalist and minister, implying a legal shield of confidentiality to Manning in order to get him to reveal more than he may have otherwise, and if Lamo was working simultaneously (or later) as a government informer for either the FBI and/or military/intelligence elements, would that necessarily, legally, prevent anything Manning said to Lamo as noted in the full chat logs from being used in any legal charges and proceedings that will finally be brought against Manning, particularly if Lamo was the _initial_ tipster who informed on Manning to the government?

Since it _seems_ it was Lamo who first brought to government attention what Manning was allegedly doing (and why didn’t the NSA’s Echelon surveillance program catch on first?), does that provide the foundation for a possible dismissal of charges against Manning, as Lamo’s data, obtained under a false claim of journalistic shield or religious confession protections, could the Lamo info be considered “poisoned fruit,” as the lawyers say, or grounds for dismissal due to potential government misconduct, as occurred in the Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers case?

I think that becomes the crucial legal question, and it would be interesting to know one way or the other, and on what legal basis or which precedents pertain, if any. Not being an attorney, maybe others here can comment on these questions of law.

And why would Wired reveal the full (???) chat logs only _now,_ after more than a year of withholding them? What legal liability, either civil or criminal, does Wired, Hansen (Wired’s editor in chief), Poulsen, Wired’s publisher/owner (Conde Nast), or Lamo have, now that the full logs have been revealed, from a criminal and/or civil perspective?

It seems Lamo (what a perfect surname) is not the only deceptive and dishonest player in this expanding imbroglio, although he (among others involved, as noted here) will probably use the argument that since a massive leak of national security-related data was involved, that the ends justified the means. Spooky stuff.

Read the Greenwald piece–it’s both revelatory and devastating.

My only speculation into his mental state is that he seems to have wanted to be caught. Confessing to a stranger is not how you run a successful conspiracy.

And I don’t think Lamo’s use of the minister bit is new information. I believe it was at least in one Glenn Greenwald’s columns.

You want to condemn the war – fine. But if you paint a picture of wanton destruction and disregard for civilians as being the norm for the bulk of the war, you are not being honest. Sure – you can find examples the contrary, but they are not the norm and pale in comparison to anything else in the past.

Wanton destruction and disregard for civilians is the norm for all war. That is one of many reasons why sensible people advocate against wars of choice.

I have this strange feeling that your opinions would be about 180 degrees from where they are if it was North America being occupied and the “collateral damage” were Anglophones.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers

One “Timothy D Webster” on Disqus (click Activity)
http://disqus.com/facebook-100001081537838/

Glenn Greenwald’s article
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/14/wired/

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs

You want to condemn the war – fine. But if you paint a picture of wanton destruction and disregard for civilians as being the norm for the bulk of the war, you are not being honest. Sure – you can find examples the contrary, but they are not the norm and pale in comparison to anything else in the past.

Something like 75% of the civilians killed in Afghanistan are from Taliban fire. Given the lopsided amount of weaponry, shouldn’t that number be less? Are they actually the ones with no regard for human life?

You don’t seem to understand how this works, so let me edify you:

1. You can confess to anyone you like; it makes no difference whether you know them beforehand. Since Lamo was representing himself as a minister, everyone knows that such confessions are protected, even if a potential crime is involved. No court has ever held against that shield. The fact that Lamo lied and was perhaps acting as an agent of the federal government at the time he told that lie invalidates his credibility.

2. There is no conspiracy at work here regarding Manning’s alleged actions, and there never was. That’s something you are implying, but without any facts or evidence to make a case.

Maybe you should stick to what you know best about this: nothing, and keep quiet.

2. And whether or not these things are isolated occurrences that do not make up the bulk of the war, the fact that they even happen in such numbers as they do, with the stupefying lack of plausible justification or proof that they were ‘necessary’, is simply unforgivable. Keep in mind the stringent standards of justification that should be upheld for something as heinous as killing innocent civilians, if that is even really ever justifiable. Do the scales really balance?

re: “Well, if you read the wikileaks on Iraq and Afghanistan you’ll find quite a few.”

If there was clear evidence of intentionally targeting civilians, then those soldiers would be tried. Mistakes, collateral damage, or the umbrella of ‘war is hell’ means bad things can happen with out them being a ‘war crime’.

Christ – people throw around ‘war crimes’ so cavalier these days. Look up Mladic or people who were actually accused and tried of war crimes to see what they really look like.

In particular the claim that the NSA could break RSA at 2048 bits if they used national level computing power.

Put simply, I do not believe this. Why? Bradley also said that some Uni. of Michigan researchers had found a way to crack RSA 1024. In fact, their technique involved physical access to specific hardware and manipulation of the power supply to cause errors in the CPU. This has nothing to do with cracking the RSA algorithm itself which would be of extremely great significance.

Why not 2048 bits? The best known algorithms for cracking RSA have subexponential complexity which can be described by a mathematical function L_n[1/3, alpha]. Simply plugging in the number of bits and the amount of computing power you have will tell you how long it will take. 2048 bits? Not in a million years — literally.

Could the NSA have an algorithm we don’t know about? Maybe. But a very thorough search of the literature gives a few hints as to what the limits of human ingenuity currently are in this field, and no, I do not think they possess such an algorithm.

The question remains. Was Bradley lied to? Was he simply mistaken? Did he lie to Lamo? Has that been inserted into the chat logs? So many possibilites.

And regarding Lamo’s d-bag status… My vote is for d-bag.

But, Manning did confess to a crime. I’d be curious to hear what everybody here thinks is an appropriate “Stop Snitching” policy.