Julian Assange, Wikileaks Founder, Hunted By Pentagon

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is being hunted by Pentagon investigators who believe that he may be close to releasing classified State Department documents that "could do serious damage to national security," the Daily Beast reports.

According to information obtained by the Daily Beast from government officials, the Pentagon fears Assange may have received the secret State Department communications from Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who was recently arrested for leaking the "Collateral Damage" video to Wikileaks, among other materials.

Adrian Lamo, a computer hacker with whom Manning had corresponded, reported Manning after the intelligence specialist told Lamo he had leaked to Wikileaks some 260,000 secret State Department records, in addition to the "Collateral Damage" video and a document describing Wikileaks as a security threat. Manning reportedly told Lamo the hundreds of thousands of State Department documents he leaked to the whistleblower website detailed "almost criminal political back dealings."

The Daily Beast writes that the classified cables that Manning may have obtained--and shared with Assange--"went out over interagency computer networks available to the Army and contained information related to American diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, the diplomat said."

According to Wired, Manning told Lamo of the leaked documents, "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."

Read more from the Daily Beast.

Comments

[llivinginthemoment]

09:56 PM on 06/21/2010

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/06/intel_leak.html

Federation of American Scientists says that leak investigations under Obama and prosecutions are a record number. More than any other previous administration-- even the Bush administration.

At the end of the day, there would have been no revelations about the NSA program by the New York Times or lying about WMD either-- if Obama was president at the time. Why? Because whistleblowers would be frightened of criminal prosecution. Is this what Obama really had in mind?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16nsa.html

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0330nj1.htm

[cottleston pie]

12:34 PM on 06/17/2010

So much for protecting whistleblowers...hypocrisy you can believe in...

[hjalmar]

12:08 AM on 06/15/2010

Targeting Whistleblowers: Truth Telling Endangered

By Stephen Lendman

June 14, 2010

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25716.htm

[JohnnyTraveler]

11:20 PM on 06/14/2010

Google than watch the movie (made by the US miltary),"The Battle of San Pietro",then you'll understand why the top brass never wants the public to know what really goes on in a war.
The documentary clearly shows dead american GI's,how the locals dig graves and how they drop in the bodies like potato sacks under the supervision of american MP's.

[IDIOTA]

08:06 PM on 06/14/2010

What is Wikileaks? Shouldn't that have been mentioned in the article?

[coolfireone]

02:24 PM on 06/14/2010

In my view this is really bad. In the first place, such as the subject video should never have been classified. There is nothing about the video related to national security. Our military, and much of our government, has unfortunately made a habit of classifying embarrassing evidence of crimes.

This trend is very disturbing and reflects upon our honor. The fact that this administration, for which I voted, now is bent upon chasing down any who have the guts to release evidence of some of our crimes, is even more disturbing. To contribute to any attempt to hide a crime is obstruction of justice. Our president has sworn to uphold our laws. I am really disappointed, and I am concerned what is happening to our nation concurrent with most not paying attention.

[woody7]

01:32 PM on 06/14/2010

Problem as I see it is that until something is done, I guess that they will pull the "conspiracy" to commit something wrong card, then claim state secrets privilege. Thus keeping a lid on it.

[Harrier]

10:34 AM on 06/14/2010

The govt cannot harrass news agencies for their sources. They need to enforce their own procedures and investigate things at their end. This is something that needed to come out.

[Matt Layo]

01:07 AM on 06/14/2010

Assange may have some excuse, but Manning as a member of the US military is a traitor and should be up for life in prison or death penalty for treason.

[TessyRenberg]

02:16 AM on 06/14/2010

If he was a soldier he was aware of the rules of engagement, and knew that the journalists and the family in the van who stopped to help driving their children to school should not have been shot. You absolutely need people who speak out as Manning or else you will go the same way as other totalitarian regimes. I have family in the US, please do not advocate that they fall behind an iron curtain.

[Itsbeenalongday]

11:28 PM on 06/13/2010

Never mind the message, shoot the messenger.

[Johnny Boa]

07:59 PM on 06/13/2010

What is the Pentagon does not want us to know? They behave like a virgin who has lost her virginity. And do not want Daddy to know ....

[Redeemer777]

09:34 PM on 06/13/2010

OmG what an anal ogy

[joebaggadonuts]

02:32 PM on 06/13/2010

some interesting thoughts about knowing what the "protectors" know:

http://www.davidbrin.com/transparent.htm

Maybe it's time to turn the spotlight on our government secrets?

[hwjone]

08:18 AM on 06/13/2010

Just read the text of 18 U.S.C. § 794 : US Code - Section 794: Gathering or delivering defense information to aid foreign government (reference http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/37/794)

Does Dick or Liz Cheney know about this? Since they have been communicating how weak the US is now in dealing with terrorism, shouldn't they be held to the same law? Prosceute them under this law.

[drumsgirl]

08:57 AM on 06/13/2010

Are they giving opinions publicly or are they supplying actual classified documents? That's the difference.

[hwjone]

05:37 PM on 06/13/2010

The law does not specify that what they are passing is in document form, nor that it be classified.

[mamacat]

07:38 AM on 06/13/2010

So what should we expect next from the whistle-blower police?
Are they going to retroactively arrest the man who released the video of Rodney King being beaten senseless by the LAPD?
Is Big Brother going to start classifying the weather reports, and only authorize friendly reports to be released?

[drumsgirl]

08:58 AM on 06/13/2010

Did the guy that shot the video have a security clearance and made a pledge to keep what he saw secret?

[TessyRenberg]

11:49 AM on 06/13/2010

Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949
Its really easy to read and understand that the van picking up the wounded man was not to be shot. They were after all a family taking the kids to school. Have you seen the video?

[LifeBecomesKafka]

08:54 PM on 06/13/2010

This is a frightening fact: In at least three states it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.
http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns

[fr33d0mhawk]

07:29 AM on 06/13/2010

Dont put stuff in writing that you would not feel appropriate for television, a morality test in ethics class. I would be upset if they wrote secret frequencies, codes for classified radio traffic, troop movements or things that actually threaten national security, recipes for nukes, but diplomatic correspondence? If the writing contains true statements that might hurt somebodies feelings, good, because either their feelings need to be hurt, or those who wrote those statements deserve to be embarrassed for making those statements. Imagine if all diplomatic channels around the globe had such open-ness, what could be accomplished, or sometimes more appropriately, what can be ignored, like WMD that do not exist.

[drumsgirl]

09:04 AM on 06/13/2010

Diplomatic correspondence contains sensitive negotiations and usually national security information as the Chief of Station at an Embassy is always a CIA Officer.